Armend Bekaj is a researcher at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research (DPCR), Uppsala University in Sweden. He combines academic and policy experience on peace and conflict, and democracy versus autocracy, with a focus on Central and Eastern Europe. For the past three years he has also been working at Alva Myrdal Centre for Nuclear Disarmament (AMC) at DPCR, focusing on the role of sanctions on disarmament and non-proliferation. Bekaj holds a PhD on Political Science from the University of Sheffield and a Masters on Conflict Resolution from the University of Bradford.
Rozafa Berisha is a social anthropologist with an interest in the gendered, social, and affective dimensions of the state. She completed her PhD at the University of Manchester in 2022 and held visiting fellowships at the Institute for East and Southeast European Studies (IOS) in Regensburg (Germany) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (USA) supported by a Fulbright scholarship. More broadly, her research interests lie at the intersection of anthropologies of the state and geopolitics; youth and gender; hope and affect. She is currently a postdoctoral researcher at Utrecht University and teaches at the University of Prishtina.
Uranela Demaj is currently a Fulbright scholar at New York University where she is carrying out research on language and diaspora studies. She is also professor in sociolinguistics and former vice rector for science and research at AAB College in Pristina, Kosovo. She obtained her PhD from Ghent University (Belgium) in 2019, focusing on language and ethnic nationalism in the Albanian-Serbian conflict in Kosovo. Her work examines the multifaceted dimensions of language in Kosovo and the wider western Balkans, emphasizing historical and contemporary perspectives, ethnic nationalism and identity building. Demaj also actively conducts applied research at the intersection of language and human rights in Kosovo. Her involvement extends to collaborative endeavors with esteemed international organizations and human rights networks including the International Organization for Migration and the United Nations in Kosovo, thereby substantively contributing to the discourse on the intersectionality of linguistic dynamics and human rights with the region.
Agata Domachowska is an associate professor (dr hab.) at the Faculty of Humanities, Nicolaus Copernicus University (NCU) and a senior analyst at the Institute of Central Europe (Department of the Balkans). The recipient of numerous scholarships and grants including a Kosciuszko Foundation in New York, the 2015 ASEEES Davis Travel Grant, from the Polish Ministry of Education, and from the Ministry of Education and Culture in Croatia; she conducted research at the University of Pittsburgh, George Washington University and the Humboldt University of Berlin as well as in archives and libraries in Serbia, Montenegro, Albania, Macedonia and Croatia. She also did an internship at the European Parliament and a training stay at the Polish Embassy in Tirana (Albania). She is the head of the Laboratory for the Study of Collective Memory in Post-communist Europe and on the Polish Commission of Balkan Culture and History. Her research focuses on identity and historical narratives, nation-building and the politics of memory in the Western Balkans, Balkan diasporas, politics and culture of Western Balkan states.
Linda Gusia is a feminist scholar and sociologist. She is head of the Institute of Sociology at the University of Prishtina. Her research has focused on topics of gender, feminism, activism, space, memory, and resistance. She co-founded the University Program for Gender Studies and Research (UP), which synergizes research with pedagogy and social involvement through feminist theories and practice and she is co-organizer of the annual school on Gender and Sexuality at the University of Prishtina. She also teaches the course Water and Conflict, MA Integrated Management of Water Resources, at University of Prishtina.
Atdhe Hetemi is based at the University of Prishtina and currently serves as executive director of the Institute of Crimes Committed During the War in Kosovo. He holds a PhD in East European Studies from Ghent University (Belgium), with research expertise in student movements, memory politics, and political transformation in post-conflict societies. His work combines qualitative archival research with quantitative analysis and has been published in leading journals and edited volumes in the field of Southeast European Studies.
Ramadan Ilazi currently serves as the head of research at the Kosovar Centre for Security Studies (KCSS). He holds a PhD in Politics and International Relations from Dublin City University, Ireland, and a Master of Letters degree in Peace and Conflict Studies from St. Andrews University, Scotland. Ilazi is a member of the International Republican Institute’s Western Balkans Task Force on Threats to Democracy and, in this capacity, has co-authored a paper on Kosovo’s vulnerabilities towards malign foreign influence. Previously, Ilazi held the position of Kosovo’s Deputy Minister for European Integration (2015-2016), where he was involved in supporting the process of preparing a national plan for the implementation of the Stabilization and Association Agreement with the European Union and developing the European Reform Agenda (ERA) for Kosovo. His most recent book is The European Union and Everyday Statebuilding: The Case of Kosovo (Routledge 2022).
Enduena Klajiqi is a fundamental research fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) and a doctoral candidate at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her dissertation focuses on feminist statebuilding encounters in Kosovo. Her research interests lie in the nexus between feminist activism, nationalism and statebuilding practices.
Gëzim Krasniqi is lecturer in Nationalism and Political Sociology and MSc in Nationalism in Global Perspective programme co-director at the University of Edinburgh, UK. He has published extensively on issues of nationalism, citizenship and state-building, often with a focus on Southeastern Europe. He is co-editor (with Dejan Stjepanovic) of Uneven Citizenship: Minorities and Migrants in the Post-Yugoslav Space and (with Ioannis Armakolas et al.) of Confronting Multiple Crises: Local and International Perspectives on Policy-Making in Kosovo. Currently he serves as a steering committee member of ASEN (The Association for the Study of Ethnicity and Nationalism) and associate editor of Identities: Global Studies in Culture and Power journal. He is also a board director at the Kosova Education Center (KEC).
Nita Luci is an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Prishtina. With a focus on masculinity, nationalist cultural politics, and political movements, her work has emphasised interdisciplinary and participatory-action research in anthropology, including gender studies, critical art practice and digital heritage. She has received numerous grants (UK AHRC) and fellowships (visiting scholar at Dartmouth College). She co-founded the University Program for Gender Studies and Research, University of Prishtina, and chaired between 2014-2018. Her latest publications, co-authored, offer a cross-temporal frame for understanding how activism, resource extraction and ecological disruption have intersected with political sovereignty in Kosovo.
Robert Muharremi is dean of faculty at the Rochester Institute of Technology – Tirana Campus (Albania). He lectures international law & organizations’ international relations, human rights, and law & politics. Muharremi has served as an advisor for various international organizations and government institutions in Kosovo and has extensive experience as a legal counsel in the private corporate sector. He has served in the Office of the Prime Minister, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Justice, and in other government agencies as advisor on legal and policy issues. Muharremi is a member of the Albanian branch of the International Law Association. He has published extensively on topics related to international law, international justice, and public policy. He holds a doctorate in law from the University of Saarland (Germany) and a Master of Science degree in public policy and management from SOAS/University of London (UK).
Vjosa Musliu is an associate professor in the Democratic Futures Research Group at Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB). She is the author of Girlhood at War: Interpreting War and Liberation in Kosovo (Bloomsbury Academic) and Europeanization and Statebuilding as Everyday Practices: Performing Europe in the Western Balkans (Routledge Studies on Intervention and Statebuilding). She is also co-editor (with Itziar Mujika Chao) of Feminist Encounters of Statebuilding: The Role of Women in Making the State in Kosovo and (with Gëzim Visoka) of Unravelling Liberal Interventionism: Local Critiques of Statebuilding in Kosovo (Worlding Beyond the West Series). Musliu serves as a co-editor of the Routledge Studies on Intervention and Statebuilding Series, is a member of the Yugoslawomen+ Collective, and a board director at the Youth Initiative for Human Rights in Kosovo.
Artan Mustafa is a Kosovar researcher with a focus on social policy, social basis of politics, and social sustainable development. He is currently a Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (EUI). Artan writes as a national expert on social protection and social inclusion for the European Social Policy Analysis Network – ESPAN (formerly European Social Policy Network – ESPN) which is a European Commission-financed project managed by the Luxembourg Institute for Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
Ridvan Peshkopia is lecturer of Political Science at the University for Business and Technology, Kosovë, and a graduate student in Applied Mathematics with the Department of Applied Mathematics, University of Tirana. He earned his PhD with the University of Kentucky’s Department of Political Science. His research interests cover international relations, political behavior, EU eastward enlargement, institutional reforms, intergroup relations, public opinion, statistical analysis and mathematical models.
Antonija Todic is a junior researcher at the Institute for Ethnic Studies, where her focus is mainly on the processes of immigration and integration in Slovenia and beyond, the gendered dimensions of those processes, as well as data management and practices of open science principles. At the same time, she is enrolled in the PhD programme Humanities and Social Sciences at the Department of Sociology, Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana. Under the supervision of Dr. Primož Krašovec and Dr. Ksenija Vidmar Horvat, she is working on her dissertation on the Transnationalization of Care and the Position of Migrant Care Workers in Elderly Care in Slovenia, based on qualitative research methods. Since 2021, she has also been an editor for the editorial board of the journal Treatises and Documents, Journal of Ethnic Studies.
Gëzim Visoka is associate professor of Peace and Conflict Studies in the School of Law and Government at Dublin City University. His research focuses on post-conflict peacebuilding and statebuilding, as well as state creation and the politics of diplomatic recognition. He has authored and edited over 10 books, 30 journal articles, 25 book chapters, and 20 policy studies. His published work has appeared in international journals, including Nature, European Journal of International Relations, Journal of Common Market Studies, Review of International Studies and Cooperation and Conflict. He is the editor of Routledge Studies in Statehood and co-editor of Rethinking Peace and Conflict Studies (Palgrave).
Mladen Zobec is a sociologist specializing in the Balkans with a focus on the social, political, and economic history of Yugoslavia, labour migration, and ethnic migrant entrepreneurship. Originally from Slovenia, he is based in Vienna and employed as a doctoral researcher at the Center for Southeast European Studies, University of Graz within the FWF-supported project “To the Northwest! Intra-Yugoslav Albanian migration (1953-1989)”. His dissertation focuses on the “Albanian ethnic economy in socialist Slovenia (1945-1990)” and explores the lived experiences of Albanian-speaking migrant entrepreneurs during Yugoslav socialism. Methodologically, his approach is rooted in oral history, archival research, and a variety of other qualitative and ethnographic research methods. Additionally, he is the administrator of the Balkan Academic News (BAN) newsletter.
