Social Activation of Kosovar Albanian Women in Slovenia

Abstract The article examines the evolving challenges faced by Kosovar Albanian migrant women in Slovenia who are increasingly targeted by social activation programs. Based on qualitative interviews with migrant women and expert participants in these programs, the authors examine its ambivalent outcomes that aim to empower Kosovar Albanian women and facilitate their labor market integration. The core argument posits that these women have found themselves at the junction of conflicting care demands. On the one hand they are burdened with “patriarchal” caretaking responsibilities within the translocal Slovenian-Kosovar space, but on the other social activation pushes them into feminized and underpaid jobs in the care sector. Against this background, the authors outline the risk of strengthening ethnic inequalities in the long-term that could contradict the short-term successes of social activation. In doing so, the article contributes to scholarship on East-West care migration and transnational gendered labor regimes by offering an empirically grounded critical analysis of the social activation program in Slovenia as experienced by Kosovar Albanian women. By applying the concept of “care extractivism” in a post-Yugoslav, EU-border context, we highlight the ambivalent interplay between empowerment and racialized labor integration.