This dissertation explores the significance, evolution, and current state of women’s lament traditions in southern Albania, focusing on the city of Gjirokastër and its villages. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Albania between 2019 and 2024, through a blend of ethnographic research and personal reflection, this dissertation highlights the historical role of women as central figures in performing and preserving these practices.

In addition, this study examines how lament traditions have been shaped and challenged by different political changes, modernization, and migration. Interviewing survivors from various internment camps during the communist regime, this study investigates how those communities were forced to adapt and suppress feelings of sorrow. This dissertation further explores the decline of lamentation due to globalization, shifts in gender roles, migration, modernity, and, more recently, the COVID-19 pandemic. In conclusion, this dissertation demonstrates the importance of lament tradition in expressing and understanding feelings of separation and loss, as well as the ways this tradition can preserve, transform, and evolve during different and challenging times.