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About Berit Backer
- Berit Backer (August 3, 1947 – March 7, 1993) was a Norwegian social anthropologist and ethnographer, head of the Institute of Peace Research (PRIO) between 1978 and 1982 in Norway.
- Backer was a human rights activist who fought for Albanian national causes for much of her life.
- She published literature on Albanian family structures from studies conducted in the village of Isniq, in the Rugova valley of Kosovo.
- During her first visit to Albania in 1969, she became fascinated by the Albanians, and their culture and struggle for independence.
- She dedicated her research for a scholarly degree in social anthropology.
- Berit was fluent in Albanian.
- She published the book “Behind Stone Walls”, a social anthropological study of traditional Albanian society.
- It focuses on the formation and evolution of household and family structures among the Kosovo Albanians.
- It was written on the basis of fieldwork carried in the village of Isniq in western Kosovo in 1975.
- Backer died suddenly in 1993 after having been stabbed to death by a mentally disturbed person.
- John Halliday, editor of the memoirs of Enver Hoxha called her "an Albanian expert".
- In 2018, Kosovos prime minister Hashim Thaqi dedicated the Presidential Jubilee Award to the Backer family.
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