On the Anthropology of Blood-Feuds During a Time of “Total Crisis”

The aim of this article is two-fold. It explores the correlation between a state of “total crisis” (of the government, society, identity, science, and so on) in post-socialist Albania and the production of contemporary anthropological knowledge about Albanian society in. The lens through which this correlation will be viewed in this article is the blood-feud. By dominating both knowledge production and governmental practices, the blood-feud has long been a determining focal point of the understanding of customary law and Albanian society. My assumption is that contemporary international anthropology and Albanian ethnology both continue to be influenced by categories of legal primitivism that are primarily constructed as part of Indo-European studies. I believe that any contemporary anthropology of the blood-feud should address the relationship between the modern state and society in order to grasp the meaning of and changes in the culture of blood-feuds and more broadly of Albanian society and culture. The modern state functions as the principal agent of social and cultural transformation of modern society.