“I want Albania to be like Europe”: Grassroots movements and new ways of commoning in contemporary Albania

“I want Albania like Europe” was the slogan of the student protest that followed the demise of the communist regime in Albania in 1990. During this period, students were seen as the main agents of social change. Despite considerable social, political, and economic changes, Albania remains one of the lowest-income countries in Europe. While many local economists and politicians continue to use EU accession as the benchmark for the country’s well-being, inhabitants increasingly face precarity and uncertainty, with alternative scenarios often seemingly non-existent and coated with passive attitude. Although this passivity seems to be the prevailing mindset, certain grassroots collectives have sought ways to reshape the uncertainty of daily life. I argue that through their practices and tactics, they aim to remit already familiar structural remnants such as the nexus of house–land–kinship, translating them into collective commons that have the potential to lead to alternative futures.