Restoring Pasts and Enriching Futures in Albania

ABSTRACT:Complaints about the uncertainty and instability of everyday life often emanate from mainstream Albanian society, but a small number of local social entrepreneurs are seeking to overcome this prevailing thought matrix. In postulating their entrepreneurial tactics and goals, they see the mobilisation and transformation of the passive mindset (mentaliteti) of the majority of Albanians as the core prerequisite for their own economic success, as well as general well-being in the country. The paper explores mentaliteti and how it relates to entrepreneurial subjectivities, tactics, and plans. In their aim to mobilize the predominant mentaliteti, local entrepreneurs aspire to revitalize certain traditional moral norms such as responsibility. They do this by redeploying already familiar structural processes like remittances that have been important to the country's history and economy. Through their entrepreneurial plans and endeavors, this small group of individuals aims to bring back and remit specific, once important, ethical and moral values to ensure a better future for all. Both entrepreneurship and remittances are important drivers of economic and social enrichment and general prosperity in Albania today and in the future.