Changing Policy Debates in KosovoResearching, Analysing, Writing

Besa ShahiniPrishtina

13 February 2013

Today’s Talk

My Story as a Researcher

How to do research: Prishtina

How to write and present: Prishtina

How to wiki Research, Writing and Presenting

Sources of Inspiration

esiweb.org

iksweb.org

gazetajnk.com

The Capital City

Wealthiest municipality

Seat of government

Seat of international inst

Centre of expertise

Why is it so badly governed?

Prishtina Doubled in Size

Conventional Wisdoms

SOK (1990s): 160,000

UNMIK (2002): 500,000

OSCE (2005): 550,000

School Book (2006): over 600,000

350,000 today, 650,000 in 2020 80,000 new apartments

3 new ring roads

NEW Industrial Zones

Strategic Plan 2020

What is the Evidence?

1999 - 2005 OSCE 564,800

March 2003 Emergency 210,273

Early 2004 Assembly251,775

Mid-2004 Gen.Admin.315,196

March 2004 Strategic Plan 350,000

Implications for policy

Basic assumptions may be wrong: water use/capita

Investment needs (schools, infrastructure, roads) for 650,000 or 250,000 people in 2020?

Most people who will live in Prishtina in 2020 are already living in Prishtina today! Planning is for them!

Starting the Research

What has been written on Prishtina?What do we know about the past?What do we know about the economy?What do we know about population

growth?What do we know…?

Searching for literature

Kosovo ArchivesCity ArchivesNational Library UniversityBookstoresPrivate collections

Very little has been written on Prishtina

What did we find?

Founded after WWII; Small town - Catholic Church by Grand Hotel; Public Library 1981; Prishtina ate up 43% of funds for Kosovo; Luci and illegal construction in 2000. Where are the cultural monuments?Who is responsible?

“Until the end of World War II, Prishtina was a typical Oriental town” (Monograph 1959)

Census 1921 for Prishtina

9,233 Muslim (8,171 Turkish speaking)

4,633 Orthodox

313 Jew

106 Roman Catholic

Destroy the Old - Build the New

“Today, Prishtina is abandoning its old memories and is departing from its past and becoming a modern city - a new socialist city” (1965)

City Without a River

The Story of the “LIST”

5 Islamic (mosques and collection of manuscripts)

2 Orthodox (iconostasis and archbishop’s residence)

1 Jewish cemetery

2 Archeological sites (covered)

4 Ottoman-style Private Homes

3 Homes - Communist Memorials

3 Vernacular (clock tower, fountain, hamam)

1 Kosovo Museum

21 “PROTECTED” MONUMENTS

Legacy of Destruction Continued

Collection of Manuscripts burnt (1999)Iconostasis burnt (2004)Aca Marovic Home destroyed (today Post and Telecom)Ruins of Old Hamam covered (Parliament)Tjerrtorja (Textile factory)Great Hamam desolate (entrance closed, sewage)Jewish cemetary overgrown with grass

16 SURVIVED

Institutional FailureLocal Institutions responsible:

– Kosovo Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments– Pristina Institute – Ministry of Culture: Department of Cultural Heritage– Museum– Municipality

Internationals responsible:- 5 international municipal administrators- 1 international municipal director of culture- 1 international ‘minister’ of culture- Council of Europe experts, UNESCO, NGOs

1. Too many actors, thus nobody feels responsible.2. Citizens are absent.

Writing the Story of Prishtina

Material Collections

Literature

Tables and statistics

Detailed interviews

(some 200 interviews)

Storyboards

“Utopian Visions”

“A Future For Prishtina’s Past”

Utopian Visions

“The most obvious problem with the Strategy 2020 is that it is based on incorrect assumptions about the size of Pristina and its growth. The Strategy refers to the absence of reliable data on population throughout Kosovo. It then proceeds on the basis of an urban population for Pristina of 350,000, in a municipality of 420,000.”

Our Argument 1

“In 2003, the Directorate of Civil Protection and Emergency conducted an assessment of the inhabitants of each of the 36 sub-municipal units of Pristina municipality. Teams went from house to house completing ‘family cards’, recording basic information on each household member. A total of 28,275 households and 161,749 inhabitants were identified through that exercise. The Directorate believed it had covered some 70-80 percent of all households, yielding an estimated population of about 231,070 inhabitants.”

Our Argument 2

“The figures given by the Directorate are not the only administrative data that can be used to estimate the urban population. In 2004, there were 34,634 households connected to the Pristina water supply. Using the Directorate of Emergency’s figure of 5.7 members per average household, this suggests that 197,000 people are connected to water in the city. Allowing for a certain percentage of illegal connections, this would yield an urban population of somewhat above 200,000.”

Our Argument 3

“The voter registry and school enrolments point to the same reality. In the 2004 election, there were 139,587 voters registered in Pristina municipality. Finally, there is the figure of 3,617 primary school students in each year level in Pristina municipality. Multiplying this by 18 yields the number of 65,112 inhabitants under the age of 18. Combined with voters, this would be around 205,000 people in the municipality.”

A public debate

Portrait of Prishtina:

Governance

Heritage and Culture

Bring citizens into the debate (on heritage, on planning)

Reactions and Outcome

2006 Confrontation

2008 Statistical Office Data

2011 Census

2012 Debate with the Mayor

Prishtina on Wikipedia

On Being an Expert

Don’t worry about it!

(also: Wikipedia does not require it)

On Writing

Writing is Hard

but

Anyone can Do It

George Orwell

Eric Arthur Blair (25 June 1903 – 21 January 1950)

Pen name: George Orwell

English journalist and novelist

“Nineteen eighty four” and “Animal Farm”

On Clarity of Language

“A man may take to drink because he feels himself to be a failure, and then fail all the more completely because he drinks. It is rather the same thing that is happening to the English language. It becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts are foolish, but the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

Orwell

On Clarity of Language

Example of bad writing:

“I am not, indeed, sure whether it is not true to say that the Milton who once seemed not unlike a seventeenth-century Shelley had not become, out of an experience ever more bitter in each year, more alien [sic] to the founder of that Jesuit sect which nothing could induce him to tolerate.”

Orwell: two problems, staleness of imagery and lack of precision.

Ogilvy on Writing

1. Read the “Writing that Works”. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning — and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

On Reading and Inspiration