Nearly twenty years ago, on a brisk spring morning, with just a bag of personal belongings, I said goodbye to my family and left my village in south-east Albania to step into the foreign world of ‘the abroad’. I was the first woman since the fall of communism in Albania to leave my village to work abroad. It was to be the start of a new life and, at eighteen years old, I felt like I was embarking on the greatest adventure of my life: full of uncertainties of the unknown and the joys and dreams of the desired. My journey joined those of hundreds of Albanians who had already emigrated and the hundreds of thousands more who would follow thereafter.

As post-communist Albania was coming to terms with its new-found freedom of movement, the need to escape constraining political and socio-economic conditions at home and, not least, the urge to experience ‘the West’ unleashed migrations of epic proportion. It is estimated that nearly 1.5 million Albanians, equal to almost half the resident population of 3.2 million, emigrated between 1990 and 2010 (World Bank 2011: 54). Many Albanians also moved internally, principally from rural to urban areas. However, for many migrants these journeys abroad and internally have been interlinked in various and complex ways, affecting the communities of both origin and destination. It is the aim of this book to investigate these linkages between internal and international migration and their developmental effects in Albania.

Why link internal and international migration in development?

In the vast array of migration studies, researchers have traditionally tended to consider migration as a process that takes place by crossing either administrative borders internal to a country or national borders – respectively, internal and international migration. These two migration types have thus been studied as two separate entities, involving separate groups of participants and needing separate conceptualisations. Very rarely have the two processes been considered as part of a linked system. It is the aim of this study to consider precisely this largely unexplored nexus of migration research. This is important for various reasons. First, in a globalising and polarising world, migrants are using an array of livelihood opportunities to ensure their survival and prosperity.