Selected events and academic activities are included in the News-section in order to inform the academic and research community as well as the public about issues related to culture, borders and gender.
ETHNOGRAFEIN Critical dialogues, epistemological challenges, field experiences, creative texts
“Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement”
Performance oikade (Aleksandros Plomaritis [provided by Dr. Christina Grammatikopoulou]
The online seminars series ETHNOGRAFEIN, since its inception in the spring of 2021, aims to contribute to a critical and interdisciplinary discussion about the theory and practice of ethnography, the epistemology of research, the significance of embodied experience, and also the modes of dissemination of the anthropological knowledge produced to both academic and non-academic audiences. The anthropological endeavour, both as a mode of research practice and a form of political writing, is based on the fundamental epistemological premises of critical evaluation, empathy, reflection, and self-referentiality and highlights the significance of a multifaceted analysis for the understanding of the local to the global.
Organisation and coordination: Fotini Tsibiridou – Ioannis Manos – Eleni Sideri
“Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement”
The 4th period of the ETHNOGRAFEIN online seminars, starting in October 2023 with the title “Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement“, sets the study of geopolitical borders as its point of departure to examine the diverse phenomena and processes that abound in the contemporary state border regions and have multilevel consequences for the border populations. By definition, studying borders and boundaries involves exploring the relationship between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’, or the “Self” and the “Other”. However, this is not a study of clear-cut dichotomies but an analysis of the interplay of multiple, multilevel, coexisting, but not necessarily interconnected processes. Boundaries are configured and take shape within a historically determined frame. They are subject to transformations in socio-political and economic contexts and are characterised by institutionally organised asymmetrical power relations. The complex making of borders and boundaries often emerges as a continuous interaction between mobility and enclosure, communication, coexistence, exchange, interaction, sameness and otherness, separation, exclusion, segmentation, connection and disconnection. The anthropological study of geopolitical borders and their populations by anthropology was systematised in the mid-1990s. It was initially based on two paradigms: the study of the USA-Mexico and European borders. Nowadays, analysing social phenomena and cultural processes concerning borders and boundaries transcends disciplinary boundaries. Novel approaches such as the crοsslocations framework and the current discussion on decolonising methods and epistemologies have expanded the analytical and conceptual significance of the concepts of border and boundary. New methodological and interpretative tools have been created to study politics, trans-border mobility, materiality, transnationalism, topologies and genealogies of migration and refugeeness, border economics, and nation-state policies concerning spatial and cultural diversity, minority rights, and performative culture. Based on detailed explorations of ethnographic research and anthropological insights, the 4th cycle of the ETHNOGRAFEIN online seminars critically examines the theoretical, epistemological and methodological complexities surrounding the study of geopolitical borders and their imposed dichotomies. Moreover, it discusses anthropology’s potential to bring forth the subtleties of human voices often overshadowed by macro narratives and create an inclusive, comprehensive dialogue in the public sphere that demonstrates the multiplicity of lived experiences.
13 November 2023
“Animal Crosslocations: more than human encounters with European border regimes” Sarah Green Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland
13/11/2023
Sarah Green: Animal Crosslocations: more than human encounters with European border regimes In March 2021, a giant container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic for six days. Twenty ships that could not pass were transporting livestock. Live animal transport has quadrupled over the last fifty years, with the EU becoming the global leader in that trade: more than two billion animals are transported across borders annually. International airports and sea ports have veterinary services and quarantine facilities.
While all that is going on, wild boar numbers have massively increased across the European region, and they wander across borders at will, triggering suspicions that the people on the other side of the border are somehow causing the problem. Elsewhere, the barbed wire and fences that were put up in parts of the European hinterlands in 2015 in efforts to discourage human migrants were ensnaring many wild animals that normally crossed these regions to do whatever they needed to do.
Then there are the many and various visitor animals, often called invasive species, such as lion fish in the Mediterranean, parakeets in Madrid and Canada geese just about everywhere: they are also border crossers, who sometimes attract the deadly phrase, “invasive species.” And finally, there are trillions of microbes, some of them pathogens (SARS, MERS, Ebola, Dengue, SARS-CoV2, etc), that accompany many animals, including the humans, across these borderlands and across bodily borders; they sometimes cause serious consternation for people. This presentation will take an overview of the encounters between more than human entities human borders as a means to think otherwise about the implications of current border transformations.
Sarah Green is professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki. She is a specialist on the anthropology of space, place, borders and location. Her regional focus has been Europe, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, Greece and the UK. In recent years, she led an ERC Advanced Grant project called Crosslocations, which experimented with what ethnography would look like if ‘the field’ was understood as a place of overlapping connections with, and separations from, other places: a dynamic and relational understanding of location, one with many crosscutting borders, rather than as a fixed place with fixed borders. Her own part of this project involved studying the way that nonhuman entities encounter human borders: livestock, wild animals and microbes. This talk is based on that research.
Only those participants who wish to receive certificates of attendance register in the following form: https://forms.gle/31tSiiNHSTt7AzUF9
The registration form will receive answers one week before the seminar.
Ethnography Club-CBG/LAB Club for the Study of Borders, Culture, and Diversity-CBG/LAB
ETHNOGRAFEIN Critical dialogues, epistemological challenges, field experiences, creative texts
The online seminars series ETHNOGRAFEIN, since its inception in the spring of 2021, aims to contribute to a critical and interdisciplinary discussion about the theory and practice of ethnography, the epistemology of research, the significance of embodied experience, and also the modes of dissemination of the anthropological knowledge produced to both academic and non-academic audiences. The anthropological endeavour, both as a mode of research practice and a form of political writing, is based on the fundamental epistemological premises of critical evaluation, empathy, reflection, and self-referentiality and highlights the significance of a multifaceted analysis for the understanding of the local to the global.
Organisation and coordination: Fotini Tsibiridou – Ioannis Manos – Eleni Sideri
“Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement”
October 2023 – April 2024
Performance oikade (Aleksandros Plomaritis) [provided by Dr. Christina Grammatikopoulou]
The 4th period of the ETHNOGRAFEIN online seminars, starting in October 2023 with the title “Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement“, sets the study of geopolitical borders as its point of departure to examine the diverse phenomena and processes that abound in the contemporary state border regions and have multilevel consequences for the border populations. By definition, studying borders and boundaries involves exploring the relationship between the ‘inside’ and the ‘outside’, or the “Self” and the “Other”. However, this is not a study of clear-cut dichotomies but an analysis of the interplay of multiple, multilevel, coexisting, but not necessarily interconnected processes. Boundaries are configured and take shape within a historically determined frame. They are subject to transformations in socio-political and economic contexts and are characterised by institutionally organised asymmetrical power relations. The complex making of borders and boundaries often emerges as a continuous interaction between mobility and enclosure, communication, coexistence, exchange, interaction, sameness and otherness, separation, exclusion, segmentation, connection and disconnection. The anthropological study of geopolitical borders and their populations by anthropology was systematised in the mid-1990s. It was initially based on two paradigms: the study of the USA-Mexico and European borders. Nowadays, analysing social phenomena and cultural processes concerning borders and boundaries transcends disciplinary boundaries. Novel approaches such as the crοsslocations framework and the current discussion on decolonising methods and epistemologies have expanded the analytical and conceptual significance of the concepts of border and boundary. New methodological and interpretative tools have been created to study politics, trans-border mobility, materiality, transnationalism, topologies and genealogies of migration and refugeeness, border economics, and nation-state policies concerning spatial and cultural diversity, minority rights, and performative culture. Based on detailed explorations of ethnographic research and anthropological insights, the 4th cycle of the ETHNOGRAFEIN online seminars critically examines the theoretical, epistemological and methodological complexities surrounding the study of geopolitical borders and their imposed dichotomies. Moreover, it discusses anthropology’s potential to bring forth the subtleties of human voices often overshadowed by macro narratives and create an inclusive, comprehensive dialogue in the public sphere that demonstrates the multiplicity of lived experiences.
“Borders and boundaries revisited: Anthropological perspectives and public engagement”
Program (October 2023 – April 2024)
30 October 2023
“The Spirit of the Convention and the Letter of the Colony: Refugees defining States in a British Overseas Territory”
Olga Dimitriou Professor in Political Anthropology, Durham Global Security Institute, School of Government and International Affairs, UK
13 November 2023
“Animal Crosslocations: more than human encounters with European border regimes” Sarah Green Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Helsinki, Finland
4 December 2023
“Borders, Paradox and Power” Yiannis Papadakis Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus
22 January 2024
“To be announced soon”
Sissy Theodosiou Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, Dep. of Music Studies, University of Ioannina
12 February 2024
“Everyday Diplomacy and Crossing Boundaries: Case of Georgia”
Ketevan Gurchiani Professor of Anthropology, Ilia State University, Tbilisi, Georgia
26 February 2024
” Transgressing Realities: Desire and Borders in Southern Balkans” Rozita Dimova Social Anthropologist, professor, Prof. Dr. Rozita Dimova, Institute for Advanced Studies (iASK), Kőszeg Center for Interdisciplinary and Advanced Studies, University of Sts. Cyril and Methodius, Skopje
11 March 2024
“The Georgian-Russian Border: Perspectives from the Periphery”
Florian Muehlfried Professor for social anthropology at Ilia State University (Georgia)
1 April 2024
“ΝΕΑ ΜΟΔΑ-НОВА МОДА-NEW FASHION: Materialities, cultural performances and crosslocations on the border between Greece and North Macedonia”
Ιoannis Manos Associate Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia
15 April 2024
“Actions from below and exit from the Cypriot liminality”
Pafsanias Karathanasis PhD in Social Anthropology
Abstracts – CVs
30/10/2023
Olga Dimitriou: The Spirit of the Convention and the Letter of the Colony: Refugees defining States in a British Overseas Territory Whereas asylum policy is predicated on the assumption that states define refugees, this paper examines how refugees define states. Through the legal case of refugees stranded on a British military base in Cyprus since 1998, I show how refugees and the states that grant them or deny them protection become co-constitutive. The processes involved in judicial activism delineate the modalities through which sovereign governance and refugee agency operate. I argue that modalities of sovereignty (colonialism, exceptionalism, and diplomacy) interact with modalities of agency (protest, vulnerability, and endurance) to redefine issues of refugee protection, state sovereignty, and externalisation of migration management. The case shows the risks that denial of protection entails for states and not just refugees. Methodologically, I propose that a nuanced, ground-level understanding of the role of law in activism allows us a clearer view to these imbrications of sovereign governance and agency, and thus to the ambivalent and multivalent aspects of activism.
Olga Demetriou joined the Durham Global Security Institute at the School in 2018 and has been its Programme Director since 2019. She has trained in social anthropology and has led projects on minority rights, gender, displacement, and refugeehood, for the last two decades.Her current interests focus on activism in refugee reception sites in the Mediterranean, specifically in Spain, Italy, Greece and Cyprus. She has authored two monographs, Capricious Borders: Minority, Population and Counter-Conduct between Greece and Turkey (Berghahn, 2013/2017) and Refugeehood and the Post Conflict Subject: Reconsidering Minor Losses (SUNY Press, 2018). She was previously affiliated with PRIO, the University of Cyprus, and Amnesty International, where she was the organisation’s researcher on Greece and Cyprus.
13/11/2023
Sarah Green: Animal Crosslocations: more than human encounters with European border regimes In March 2021, a giant container ship got stuck in the Suez Canal, blocking traffic for six days. Twenty ships that could not pass were transporting livestock. Live animal transport has quadrupled over the last fifty years, with the EU becoming the global leader in that trade: more than two billion animals are transported across borders annually. International airports and sea ports have veterinary services and quarantine facilities.
While all that is going on, wild boar numbers have massively increased across the European region, and they wander across borders at will, triggering suspicions that the people on the other side of the border are somehow causing the problem. Elsewhere, the barbed wire and fences that were put up in parts of the European hinterlands in 2015 in efforts to discourage human migrants were ensnaring many wild animals that normally crossed these regions to do whatever they needed to do.
Then there are the many and various visitor animals, often called invasive species, such as lion fish in the Mediterranean, parakeets in Madrid and Canada geese just about everywhere: they are also border crossers, who sometimes attract the deadly phrase, “invasive species.” And finally, there are trillions of microbes, some of them pathogens (SARS, MERS, Ebola, Dengue, SARS-CoV2, etc), that accompany many animals, including the humans, across these borderlands and across bodily borders; they sometimes cause serious consternation for people. This presentation will take an overview of the encounters between more than human entities human borders as a means to think otherwise about the implications of current border transformations.
Sarah Green is professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Helsinki. She is a specialist on the anthropology of space, place, borders and location. Her regional focus has been Europe, the Mediterranean, the Balkans, Greece and the UK. In recent years, she led an ERC Advanced Grant project called Crosslocations, which experimented with what ethnography would look like if ‘the field’ was understood as a place of overlapping connections with, and separations from, other places: a dynamic and relational understanding of location, one with many crosscutting borders, rather than as a fixed place with fixed borders. Her own part of this project involved studying the way that nonhuman entities encounter human borders: livestock, wild animals and microbes. This talk is based on that research.
4/12/2023
Yiannis Papadakis: Borders, Paradox and Power Border studies have grappled with, on the one hand, the need for the use of common themes or concepts while, on the other, the need for contextual specificity. Borders are sites that embody different potentialities: division and contact, conflict and cooperation, security and anxiety, creativity and oppression, among others. In short, they are sites of the paradoxical. Paradox, it is argued, is the common overarching conceptual characteristic of borders but which specific potentialities are embodied in a border and what prevails as a result of the ensuing power struggles requires contextual specificity.
Cyprus, a divided island lying on various border lines, partly inside and partly outside the EU, presents a useful socio-political space in order to illustrate this argument by outlining the specific paradoxical aspects of its own border and the results of the ensuing power struggles.
Yiannis Papadakis is Professor of Social Anthropology at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus. He is author of Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide (I. B. Tauris, 2005, also translated in Greek and Turkish), co-editor of Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History and an Island in Conflict (Indiana University Press, 2006) and Cypriot Cinemas: Memory, Conflict and Identity in the Margins of Europe (Bloomsbury, 2014), and editor of a 2006 special issue of Postcolonial Studies on Cyprus, among others. His published work has focused on ethnic conflict, borders, nationalism, history education, cinema, post-colonialism, migration and cemeteries. His recent work engages with issues of migration and social democracy in Denmark and the comparative study of cemeteries in Cyprus, Denmark and currently Japan.
22/1/2024
Theodosiou Sissy: “to be announced soon”
12/2/2024
Ketevan Gurchiani: Everyday Diplomacy and Crossing Boundaries: Case of Georgia In her talk Ketevan Gurchiani analyzes the practices of boundary crossings that are shaped by everyday diplomacy. Based on an example from a village, she discusses how religion, the main dividing line between groups, becomes a site of boundary crossings. The research shows how everyday peace is constantly reaffirmed through the tradition of inviting Muslim godparents to baptize Christian children. These practices also find their continuation in urban milieus. The city provides religious and non-religious buffer zones where dividing lines are easily blurred. The talk explores tactics people employ in their everyday lives to allow for peaceful coexistence, but also imbalances this kind of everyday diplomacy entails.
Ketevan Gurchiani is a professor of anthropology at Ilia State University in Tbilisi, Georgia. She is particularly interested in the domesticated and non-domesticated nature of the city, materiality and religion, and informal practices of resistance. Ketevan Gurchiani is also involved in research projects that focus on diversity, migration, and peace practices. Her most recent publications include A Gallery of Ghosts: Death and Burial in Lands Marked by Trauma, Material Religion (with Catherine Wanner, Zuzanna Bogumił, Sergei Shtyrkov) and Die verborgene Macht der Bäume. Urbaner Widerstand in Tiflis. In: Verdeckter Widerstand in demokratischen Gesellschaften in Frankfurter Beiträge zur Soziologie und Sozialphilosophie (2022)
26/2/2024
Rozita Dimova: Transgressing Realities: Desire and Borders in Southern Balkans In my presentation, I explore the productive role of borders in the Southern Balkans, specifically focusing on hotel-casinos and beauty consumption practices in the Greece-North Macedonia border region. Gamblers who frequent Macedonian casinos use gaming as a means to break free from rigid class constraints imposed by their rural backgrounds in Northern Greece. Financial privilege allows them special treatment, turning gambling into an escape that enables them to reinvent themselves within a new reality. For urban consumers from Thessaloniki, the border provides access to affordable beauty services in Gevgelija, which enables them to reclaim their femininity and middle-class status. This raises questions about how crossing the border influences gender and class perceptions, and intersects with other consumer elements like luxury, comfort, and status, all of which contribute to redefinition and transgression of their “old” selves.
Rozita Dimova, PhD (Stanford, 2004) is a Social Anthropologist with a distinguished record of achievements, including the prestigious Robert Texture Award for Outstanding Creativity in Anthropology. Rozita has held research positions at prominent institutions, including the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle (2003-2006), Free and Humboldt Universities in Berlin (2007-2015), and served as an Associate Professor in Southeast European Studies at Ghent University in Belgium (2013-2020). A Founding and Permanent Board Member at the Center for Advanced and Interdisciplinary Research at the University Sts. Cyril and Methodius in Skopje, North Macedonia, Rozita is currently also a Research Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Kőszeg, Hungary. Her research portfolio includes materiality, consumerism and aesthetics, ethno-nationalism, borders and migration studies. A prolific author, Rozita is the author of the monographs, Ethno-Baroque: Materiality, Aesthetics, and Conflict in Modern-day Macedonia (Berghahn, 2013) and Border Porosities: Movements of People, Objects, and Ideas in the Southern Balkans (Manchester University Press, 2021).
11/3/2024
Florian Muehlfried: The Georgian-Russian Border: Perspectives from the Periphery In my presentation, I will trace the transformation of the border between Georgia and Russia from soft to hard based on the example of the Georgian highland region Tusheti. After the breakdown of the Soviet Union, the border region was managed flexibly and “from below”. This was followed by an internationalisation of border guarding and attempts to its spiritual fortification. These three phases of border guarding can be related to three different models of the state, and of being a citizen.
Florian Mühlfried is a Professor of Social Anthropology at Ilia State University. His publications include the monographs Mistrust: A Global Perspective (2019) and Being a State and States of Being in Highland Georgia (2014), the edited volume Mistrust: Ethnographic Approximwations (2018), as well as the co-edited volumes Sacred Places, Emerging Spaces: Religious Pluralism in the Post-Soviet Caucasus (2018) and Exploring the Edge of Empire: Soviet Era Anthropology in the Caucasus and Central Asia (2011).
1/4/2024
Ioannis Manos: ΝΕΑ ΜΟΔΑ-НОВА МОДА-NEW FASHION: Materialities, cultural performances and crosslocations on the border between Greece and North Macedonia The regions of Florina (Φλώρινα) and Bitola (Битола), situated along the border between Greece and North Macedonia, constitute border locations where various and simultaneous economic, political, cultural, and social processes coincide. Amidst these processes, hegemonic discourses with different temporalities collide, various social practices with significant material implications are articulated, and multiple communities are constructed, signified, and experienced. These processes manifest across multiple fields of action and interact with each other or coexist concurrently in the same geographical space without necessarily being interlinked. This presentation uses the Florina and Bitola frontier region to explore the interplay between cultural performances and geopolitical borders. This borderland is approached as a crosslocation, where different classificatory logics and asymmetric forms of power compete to impose their meanings on the significance and value of a place. While the two regions are politically and economically separated by distinct border regimes, including those between nation-states, EU boundaries, and the Schengen zone, they are also geographically, culturally, and historically interconnected. The presentation draws upon ethnographic material to discuss how border populations dynamically and actively produce varied experiences of the place through cultural performances, including language, dance, song, and music.
Ioannis Manos (imanos@uom.edu.gr) is an Associate Professor of Social Anthropology of the Balkans at the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece. He studied History and Archaeology at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki and Social Anthropology in Hamburg, Germany and Sussex, Great Britain. He holds a Certificate in Social Research Methods from the Graduate School of Social Sciences of the University of Sussex. He has worked as a Full Time Visiting Research Fellow at the Sussex European Institute. He is the Europe regional editor of the journal Teaching Anthropology (Royal Anthropological Institute, London). He is also a founding member of the academic network on Anthropology and the Balkans “Border Crossings”, a member of the Advisory Board and co-editor of its publication series. His research interests focus on SE Europe and include borders and border regions, dance and music as performative aspects of culture, nationalism and ethnicity, politics of culture and difference, migration, human and minority rights, educational structures and processes, the teaching of anthropology and the epistemology and methodology of research. His publications include chapters and articles in Greek and English edited volumes, journals and conference proceedings, and co-editing of Greek and English edited volumes.
15/4/2024
Pafsanias Karathanasis : Actions from below and exit from the Cypriot liminality The presentation draws on my ongoing research experience in the divided Cypriot capital, which aspires to add a piece to our understanding of the otherwise complex Cyprus Problem. Focusing on the Cypriot division, and on the boundaries that it creates, it examines the ways in which social subjects attempt to cope with the official restrictions. These can be social, political or geographical, but they are also expressed as restrictions to the development of the imagination for a different future. Following contemporary anthropological approaches to the concept of liminality, the analysis begins from the old town of Nicosia, a liminal urban space – next to the Green Line – and attempts to place the processes taking place there in a broader context of analysis of Cypriot society within the conditions created by the controlled reconnection of the two sides after 2003. Drawing on a spatial analysis of political and cultural activities situated in the geographical and symbolic in-between, it attempts to approach the continuation of Cypriot division as the maintenance of an uncertain and precarious in-between state and proposes an interpretation of these activities as examples of efforts aimed at exiting the prolonged Cypriot liminality; efforts, that is, aimed at ‘life in Cyprus without the Cyprus Problem’, even if its official solution never comes.
Pafsanias Karathanasis holds a PhD in Social Anthropology from the University of the Aegean. His research interests include the anthropology of space and cities, visual culture, and political anthropology. Specifically, he is concerned with urban cultures and contested spaces in cities and border areas. He has conducted research on urban practices such as street art, public art, and activism, and has conducted participant observation with political and artistic groups active in Athens, and in the borderscapes of Mytilene and Nicosia. His articles have been published in academic journals and edited volumes, and he has participated in international conferences in Greece and abroad, and in the organization and scientific curation of panel discussions at conferences and festivals. He has collaborated as a postdoctoral researcher with the University of the Aegean, Panteion University, and the University of Amsterdam, as a lecturer with the University of Macedonia, as a coordinator of academic and educational activities with the Athens Ethnographic Film Festival-Ethnofest and he is a member of the Board of Directors of the Association of Social Anthropologists of Greece-SKAE.
The Culture-Borders-Gender/LΑΒ (Department of Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies – University of Macedonia) and the 100memories research project (Institute of Historical Research – National Research Foundation), in collaboration with the Cultural Venue of Islahane (Ministry of Culture), are jointly organizing an international, hybrid, and nomadic Conference (University of Macedonia-City-Islahane) in September 2023, with the theme:
Within / Outside the City Walls: Refugee neighborhoods of Thessaloniki (22-23/9/2023)
The concept of the ‘neighborhood’, as a subset of urban space, has been an important category in the sociological analysis of migration and refugeeness since the early 20th century. In 1925, Park and Burgess, published their classic work The City (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2019) that established them as founders of the Chicago School. Their research linked the migration of African-Americans and Spanish-speaking migrants to the creation of the so-called ‘ethnic neighborhoods’. This perception was also associated with the understanding of the refugee neighborhood as a site of resistance against assimilation and integration policies, while in many cases, ethnic neighborhoods became synonymous with ghettos. With the end of European colonialism, when Anthropology returns home, particularly to the Mediterranean environment of Europe, it hesitantly includes the study of urban space, focusing on neighborhoods. Despite the paradoxical intentions, it highlights the significance of place as a signifier of socialization and the formation of gendered self, citizenship, and the management of individual and collective memory. This participatory field observation has methodologically contributed to the multifaceted and dynamic dimension of the neighborhood for the production of knowledge and politics. In Greece, the refugee waves of 1922 intensified ethnic deviations from the national standard/archetype, not only due to reasons of language or religious difference, as exemplified in Thessaloniki between Jews and refugees, but also due to class and regional factors. After the 1922 ‘Asia Minor Catastrophe’ and the forced exchange of population based on the Treaty of Lausanne (1923), refugees who settled in the rural areas of northern Greece, Athens, Piraeus, as well as the urban environment within and outside the walls of Thessaloniki, had a significant impact on the country’s economic, social, and political life. The first ethnographic research on the “Heirs of the Asia Minor Catastrophe” was conducted in Kokkinia, a “refugee neighborhood” of Piraeus, by anthropologist Renée Hirschon during the 1970s (Heirs of the Greek Catastrophe: The Social Life of Asia Minor Refugees in Piraeus. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989). In Thessaloniki, our relationship with the Others/foreigners/persecuted has historically been shaped through personal narratives, everyday trivialities, materialities, traumas, delights, memories, and experiences which were not of interest to the grand narratives of national memory and are absent from our city’s national historical and archaeological museums.
The conference invites researchers in social sciences and humanities who use fieldwork, those who focus on the study of official and unofficial archival material, as well as those who have creatively (e.g., in literature, visual arts, cinema) been inspired by the lives of people in refugee neighborhoods, both within and outside the walls of Thessaloniki, to participate in the meeting.
Following the path of ethnography and cultural studies, we seek to explore in Thessaloniki, and beyond, the significance of ‘locality’ and ‘neighborhood’ in the context of inclusive and even conflictual relationships between refugees and other residents, as well as among themselves. Additionally, we aim to gain knowledge about everyday life and the trivial things, focusing on personal narratives, artist’s creative imagination, and fiction. Narratives creating ruptures and openings beyond the nostalgic reconstruction of the refugee past have been systematically ignored by the national narrative, but also for a more reflective and contemplative understanding of the present. This understanding maps the traumas and dynamics of the refugee condition in the current moment (see Svetlana Βoym, The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books, 2001).
The conference includes panels, workshops, walking tours, atelier-anti-tours, meetings at local spots, and a round-table discussion, in dialogue with European Cultural Days (2023 “Living Heritage”). As an honorary guest, Renée Hirschon, Professor Emerita of Anthropology at the University of Oxford, will return to her ethnographic field to highlight the significance of refugeeness in the present. She will explore its everyday construction of women’s gendered experience and its management of memory, both in material and narrative ways, within and outside the neighborhood, within the city and the state.
Venue and Mode of Conduct
The conference will take place at the University of Macedonia and at the Cultural Venue of Islahane. The mode of conduct will be hybrid. For those attending the conference hybridly and only if they need a certificate of attendance, it is necessary to complete the following registration form: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1c1EheqOHtclVWTeOQkJhSNlwlqJy3zOZ3MSgE_iCMZg/edit For those attending the conference in person and only if they need a certificate of attendance, it is necessary to register before the start of the conference, outside the conference hall of the University of Macedonia.
Organization:
Culture-Borders-Gender/LAB, University of Macedonia
Special Research Fund, University of Macedonia
Institute of Historical Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation
Service of Modern Monuments & Technical Works of Central Macedonia (YNMTEKM), Ministry of Culture (YPPPO)
Cultural Venue of Islahane
European Heritage Days 2023
Scientific Committee:
R. Hirschon (Professor Emerita, University of Oxford)
E. Voutyra (Professor Emerita, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
F. Tsibiridou (Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia, Scientific Coordinator)
I. Manos (Associate Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
E. Sideri (Assistant Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
E. Kyramargiou (Historian & Research Associate, Institute of Historical Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation)
O. Lafazani (PhD in Social Geography, Harokopio University)
A. Ioannidou (Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
S. Mavrogeni (Professor, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
M. Tsantsanoglou (Deputy General Director of MOMus and Artistic Director of MOMus-Museum of Modern Art)
A. Kondylidou (Archaeologist and Social Anthropologist)
C. Chrysanthopoulos (Special Teaching Staff, Institute of Historical Research/National Hellenic Research Foundation)
M. Zermpoulis (Researcher/Scientific Associate of the CBG/Lab)
Organizing Committee:
D. Katayftsis (Researcher/Scientific Associate of the CBG/Lab)
Ch. Grammatikopoulou (Art Historian/Scientific Associate of the CBG/Lab)
E. Kapetanaki (PhD in Social Anthropology/Secondary Education Teacher)
N. Manolas (PhD Candidate in Social Anthropology, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
A. Mitropanou (Graduate Student, MA Program, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
Ch. Groballi (Graduate Student, MA Program, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
A. Moumtzoglou (Special Teaching Staff, Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, University of Macedonia)
M.Sc. IN HUMANITARIAN LOGISTICS AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
UNIVERSITY OF MACEDONIA – INTERNATIONAL HELLENIC UNIVERSITY
DEPARTMENT OF BALKAN, SLAVIC AND ORIENTAL STUDIES
DEPARTMENT OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
ANNOUNCEMENT
Admission of Graduate Students
M.Sc. IN HUMANITARIAN LOGISTICS AND CRISIS MANAGEMENT
The Programme of Studies Committee of the interinstitutional postgraduate programme of studies “M.Sc. in Humanitarian Logistics and Crisis Management” between the Departments of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies of the University of Macedonia and Science and Technology of the University Center of International Programmes of Studies of the International Hellenic University invites interested parties to apply for the interinstitutional postgraduate programme of studies “M.Sc. in Humanitarian Logistics and Crisis Management” for the academic year 2023-2024. The courses of the programme are taught exclusively in English.
1. The “M.Sc. in Humanitarian Logistics and Crisis Management” combines humanitarian logistics with crisis management, providing high quality theoretical and technological knowledge, as well as analytical and technological tools, to cover the need for professionals in the above scientific fields of government agencies including civil protection, national and international organizations, military, police, coast guard, fire department, NGOs, local authorities, private sector companies, as well as academia.
The M.Sc. programme provides interdisciplinary education that combines technological, theoretical and managerial knowledge, as well as technological and analytical tools in humanitarian logistics and crisis management. Graduates obtain the necessary knowledge and skills, in the scientific fields of humanitarian logistics, crisis management, emergency management and business continuity for a successful academic and professional career.
2. The postgraduate studies for this M.Sc. programme lead to the acquisition of a Master’s Degree. During the first semester, all students are required to attend three mandatory core courses and a combination of two elective courses. During the second semester all students follow a further three mandatory courses and a combination of two elective courses. Finally, during the third semester, students can choose either to work exclusively to the Master’s dissertation or to work to the Master’s dissertation and attend the course Consulting Project.
The duration of the full-time study programme in order to obtain the Master’s degree is three (3) academic semesters. For students who so wish, there is also the possibility, upon request, of attending the programme on a part–time basis. In this case, the duration of the Master’s degree will be six (6) academic semesters. In addition, it is possible to attend the programme combining distance learning with traditional face-to-face teaching.
3. To meet entry requirements, candidates should be graduates from Greek Higher Education Institutions or equivalent institutions from abroad, as well as graduates of Greek Higher Military Education Institutions, Hellenic Police Officers’ School, Hellenic Coast Guard Officers’ School, Hellenic Fire Corps Officers’ School.
Graduates of Departments of equivalent institutions from abroad are accepted as candidates, on the condition that their first degree is recognized by the Hellenic National Academic Recognition and Information Center (D.O.A.T.A.P.; https://www.doatap.gr/) in accordance with the current legislation.
In addition, candidates are required to have English language knowledge documented with a relevant certificate, corresponding at least to the State Certificate of Language Learning Level B2 or other certificate proving good knowledge of English. Holders of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree at a Foreign University in English are exempt from this obligation.
4. Tuition fees of 3,200€ are required. The amount is payable in four instalments.
5. The selection of postgraduate students will be undertaken in accordance with the provisions of current legislation based on the relevance of the subject of the candidate’s first degree with respect to the subject area of the postgraduate programme, the grades received in first degree qualifications, the grades received on the thesis and undergraduate courses related to the “M.Sc. in Humanitarian Logistics and Crisis Management”, the candidate’s certified proficiency in the English language, the candidate’s curriculum vitae and recommendation letters. Additional qualifications, such as job experience or additional languages and degrees, will be taken into consideration.
Following an initial selection, interviews will be conducted by phone or Skype.
6. Interested parties are invited to submit an application. Application deadline is the 12th of December 2023.
A maximum of forty (40) students can be enrolled in the M.Sc. programme.
Application documentation must include the following:
Copy of degrees (University degree, other postgraduate degree, etc.). Students that hold an undergraduate degree from a foreign (i.e. other than Greek) university which has not been recognized by the “Hellenic National Recognition and Information Center” (D.O.A.T.A.P. in Greek) will not be eligible to be awarded a postgraduate degree.
Copy of the transcript of grades all years of undergraduate as well as any postgraduate studies.
English language knowledge documented with a relevant certificate, corresponding at least to the State Certificate of Language Learning Level B2 or other certificate proving good knowledge of English. Holders of an undergraduate or postgraduate degree at a Foreign University in English are exempt from this obligation.
At least two (2) recommendation letters. Letters must be signed by faculty members of the candidate’s university or by academics from other educational institutions that are familiar with the candidate’s academic background. In case of candidates with significant professional experience, they can also submit letters from people in their professional field.
A detailed curriculum vitae.
Any other information that, in the opinion of the candidates, would contribute to their more complete evaluation, such as certificates of participation in summer schools, conferences, student exchange programs, IKY scholarships. or other recognized institutions, prizes in competitions, presentations of papers in scientific conferences, proof of participation in research projects, scientific publications, certificates of professional experience, etc.
A copy of ID or passport.
A recent passport size photograph
The necessary application documents are submitted via email to: infohlcm@ihu.edu.gr. Applicants are advised to include in the subject only the following: FULL NAMEAND “APPLICATION 2023-2024”.
Compliance with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) (EE 2016/679)
Prospective students who submit an application and the supporting documents, give their consent to the processing of their personal data for the purpose of assessment of their candidacy in order to become accepted to the postgraduate programme. If a candidate is not selected, his/her details are deleted from the School’s archives within a period of 30 days. A candidate whose application is not successful is entitled to receive the documents submitted, otherwise the documents are destroyed within 30 days.
The aim of ETHNOGRAPHEIN is to contribute to a critical and interdisciplinary debate on the theory and practice of ethnography, the epistemology of research, the importance of embodied experience, but also the ways of disseminating the produced anthropological knowledge to the academic and non-academic publics. The anthropological study, as research practice and as politics of writing, involves critical appraisal, empathy, reflection, and self-referentiality, and highlight the importance of the multimodal analysis of the local for understanding the general. Organisation: Fotini Tsibiridou – Ioannis Manos – Eleni Sideri The seminars are held on Mondays from 16:00-18:00 ——————————————- Seminar Platform: ZOOM Link https://zoom.us/j/8364531775?pwd=OVg3YVZlbmVCYWs3S0JYcEFGYlV1QT09 Meeting ID: 836 453 1775 Passcode: KB2JKa
In the year 2022-2023 in the Culture–Borders–Gender/Lab (https://cbg-lab.uom.gr/) the 3rd round of ETHNOGRAPHY took place from December to May, with the title:
“Public Anthropology, Femininities, Masculinities and Feminist Criticism”
From the standpoint of a critical Public Anthropology and its encounter with feminist criticism, the seminars focus on current fields of analysis in Gender Studies, such as the construction and performance of femininity and masculinity. Embodying hegemonies, social inequalities and power relations in terms of palimpsest patriarchies, femininities and masculinities constitute the key stakes for identity politics. At the same time, masculinities, femininities and identity politics are a privileged lens for observing and investigating the challenges to the institutional policies of equality as well as the extreme reactionary tendencies towards them. In this cycle of seminars, the complexity and dynamics of the socio-cultural condition in the constitution of the subject and in the performance of the gendered self are sought, synchronously and diachrinically, both in inclusive and conflictual contexts. Within different social and historical contexts of palimpsest hegemonies, epistemological hierarchy, economic inequality, abandonment in the peripheries and exclusions at the borders but also amid the generalization of conflicts and precarity, the importance of hegemonic and toxic masculinities that resort to violence explores the discrediting, possession and eventual expropriation of females, as the historically first, colonized bodies. Questions such as: How are hegemonic masculinities and toxic masculinities reproduced and multiplied? How do femininities react to the multiplicity of subordination and how do they respond to the challenge of emancipation? What is our attitude as researchers interpersonally, publicly and digitally in all this?
Themes Discussed: – Femicides, geronticides, care. – Women in street and Hip-Hop cultures. – Masculinities and vendetta in the context of Crete. -Patriarchy and colonialism of female and male bodies. – Lesbian femininities and masculinities. -New feminist methodologies. -Eugenics, Heterosexuality and Family (1880s-1960s). -Decolonization and gay identities. -Feminist journals in the Greek academia. -Feminist theories, aesthetic practices and global technologies.
Participants: –Athena Peglidou, Assistant Professor at the Department of History & Archeology at A.U.Th. –Natalia Koutsougera, social anthropologist (EDIP, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Panteio University). –Angeliki Sakellariou, graduate of the Dept. of Communication, Media and Culture at Panteio University. –Aris Tsantiropoulos, Associate Professor of Social Anthropology, Dept. of Sociology at the University of Crete. –Anne Simati, Postdoctoral Researcher at the University of Macedonia. –Fotini Tsibiridou, Professor of Social Anthropology at the University of Macedonia (Chairman of the Department of Balkan, Slavic and Oriental Studies, Director of the Culture-Borders-Gender/LAB, Chair of the Gender Equality Committee at PAMAK 2020-2023. –Dimitra Tzanaki, Dr. of History (University of Oxford), Postdoctoral Researcher at PTDE, University of the Aegean. –Irini Avramopoulou, Assistant Professor, Dept. of Social Anthropology, Panteio University. –Athina Athanasiou, Professor at the Dept. of Social Anthropology, Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Pantheon University, Director of the Anthropological Research Laboratory. –Maria Liapi, Sociologist-Researcher, member of the Board of Directors. Committee, scientific manager of the Diotima Center. –Elena Tzelepi, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Thessaly (Department of History, Archeology and Social Anthropology), President of the Equality and Anti-Discrimination Committee at the same university. –Kostas Giannakopoulos, Professor at the Dept. of Social Anthropology and History of the University of the Aegean, President of the Gender Equality Committee. –Iris Lykourioti, Associate Professor at the Dept. of Architecture of the University of Thessaly. –Elpida Karamba, Associate Professor at the Dept. of Culture, Creative Media and Industries of the University of Thessaly, art theorist and exhibition curator. –Christina Grammatikopoulou, Art Historian, Dr. of the University of Barcelona and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Macedonia.
The Culture, Borders, Gender/LAB – Dep. of Balkan Slavic and Oriental Studies
Invites you to the organized lectures within the «OUR FARAWAY NEIGHBORS» –lecture series
by two invited professors from Bulgaria:
Ana Luleva, Professor, celebrated member of the Faculty of Ethnology and Balkan Studies at SWU “Neofit Rilski” – Blagoevgrad, Boulgaria.
Pavlina Solachka, Assistant Professor, Faculty of Ethnology and Balkan Studies, SWU “Neofit Rilski” – Blagoevgrad, Boulgaria.
Monday, 20/03/2023, 19.00-21:00, classroom 4
lecture titles: Prof. Ana Luleva: The Bulgarian Female Labour Migration and the Moral Economy of Care Assistant Prof. Pavlina Solachka: Women’s narratives about work and everyday life in the last decades of state socialism in Bulgaria (1970s and 1980s)
Abstacts The Bulgarian Female Labour Migration and the Moral Economy of Care Since the early 1990s, female labour migration from Bulgaria has become a common practice and has acquired unprecedented dimensions. In this lecture I will address the characteristics of the most popular form of the Bulgarian female labour migration to Italy, namely work as caregivers of old people, sick family members and children. The specificity of work – from the decision to get employed abroad as domestic care workers – through its practice to its meaning for the families of the female migrants marks it as an intersection point of pure economic goals and relationships, on the one hand, and moral ones, on the other. This defines my research problem: to analyse the moral economy of care from the perspective of women care workers.
Women’s narratives about work and everyday life in the last decades of state socialism in Bulgaria (1970s and 1980s) This lecture presents some of the main topics in the biographical narratives of women – tobacco workers during state socialism. Their value as sources for the study of gender arrangements and gender order at that time will be also discussed. The collection of biographical interviews was part of my research and the writing of my PhD thesis on “The Women’s workinglifein the Pirin Tobacco Factory, Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria”.
Short CVs
Dr. Ana Luleva (ID https://orcid.org/ 0000-0002-7185-7867) is a Professor of Ethnology at the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Studies with Ethnographic Museum, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences and at the South-west University “Neofit Rilski”, Blagoevgrad. Her research interests are in the fields of anthropology of socialism and post-socialism, gender studies, memory studies, critical heritage studies, anthropology of uncertainty and trust. She is an Editor-in-chief of the journal Antropologiya/Anthropology. Journal for Sociocultural Anthropology. Among the recent publications are: Luleva, A. Culture of Dis/Trust in Bulgaria. Anthropological Perspectives. 2021, Sofia: IK Gutenberg; Everyday Socialism: Promises, Realities, and Strategies. Edited by A. Luleva, I. Petrova, P. Petrov, Sv. Kazalarska, Y.Yancheva, and Zl. Bogdanova. 2022, Sofia: Acad. Publishing House ”Prof. Marin Drinov”; Luleva, A. Rethinking “Private” in State Socialist Bulgaria. – In: Everyday Socialism: Promises, Realities, and Strategies. Ed. by A. Luleva & all., 2022, Sofia: Acad. Publishing House ”Prof. Marin Drinov”, 50-79.
Dr. Pavlina Solachka is an assistant in the Faculty of Philology at the South-West University “Neofit Rilski” in Blagoevgrad, Bulgaria. Prior to earning her PhD in Ethnology, Dr. Solachka earned her honorary Bachelor Degree in Ethnology at SWU “Neofit Rilski”,then enrolled in Master Degree program with a specific concentration in “Ethnicity and Culture”, again at SWU “Neofit Rilski”. In 2022, Dr. Solachka defended her PhD Dissertation which examined “The everyday life of the female working class during late socialism: a case study of the tobacco plant ‘Pirin’ in Blagoevgrad.” Dr. Solachka’s research interests are in the field of anthropology, more specifically that of socialism and post-socialism, women’s studies, as well as the development of the Tabaco industry in Bulgaria. Dr. Solachka has several publications in journals, dedicated to research of state socialism in Bulgaria.
On the occasion of International Women’s Day, the Editorial Committee of the journal ‘EIRINI: Studies by Young Researchers on Gender,’ in collaboration with the ‘Culture-Borders-Gender’ Laboratory of the Department of Balkan, Slavic, and Oriental Studies, and the Committee on Gender Equality and Combating Discrimination of the University of Macedonia, is organizing an informative event titled ‘Gendered Paths and Experiences: Home, Work, University, and a Magazine as a Field of Empowerment and Solidarity‘ on Wednesday, March 8, 2023, from 1:30 to 3:30 PM in the ‘Ilias Kouskouvelis’ Conference Hall.
Organizing
team: Balkans
Beyond Borders & Culture –Borders –Gender/Lab, University of Macedonia,
department of Balkan, Slavic & Oriental Studies.
Date: Friday, March 3d, Thessaloniki, Greece
15:00 –
19:00 workshop and film marathon
The workshop is funded by the Research Committee – UOM.
Description What does cinema, intersectionality and Haiku poems have in common?
Drawing upon
the theme of the 13th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival titled
‘Untiling the Mosaic’ we invite you to a workshop, where we will discuss and
contemplate on the “gaze”, anthropology in film, how to tell stories through
images, and address the multiple identities we all carry, our personal and
social mosaic. We invite you to
create your own short films, consisting of three acts through three shots,
inspired by the structure of Haiku poems, which are made up of three verses
which capture a moment in the present time, within the ‘now’, kind of like a
movie.
The workshop and film marathon will be followed by a screening of selected films from the competition programme of the 13th Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival ‘Untiling the Mosaic’, consisting of films by young filmmakers from the Balkans, which thematically touch upon the experience of the coexisting multiple and intersecting identities such as gender, social class, sexuality and ethnicity. By making this ‘mosaic’ visible and deconstructing it, the possibilities of redefining it, suddenly appears.
Programme
Workshop: “Haiku Shorts: filmmaking and storytelling
in three acts”
15:00 –
15:30 “Cinema and
Anthropology. Saying a lot just in few words”, Eleni Sideri , Ass. Prof.
BSOS-UoM
15:30 – 16:00 “’Mosaic of identities & telling stories: film form in three acts’”, Vasiliki Maltasoglou, Festival Director & co-founder of Balkans Beyond Borders.
Film Marathon17:00 – 19:00
We wander
and explore the nearby environment, the neighborhood of the university, and
film with our mobile phone or any other equipment at our disposal, images,
sounds and sensations that capture a mosaic of identities that coexist in a
moment in time. The Haiku poem, consisting of three verses, becomes the vehicle
of the cinematic composition and creation of a film, with a maximum duration of
1 minute, consisting of three shots.
Delivery of films and experience sharing 19:00-19:30
Number of
Participants: 15 There will be accepted in order of priority. Certificates of
attendance will be given.
Vasiliki Maltasoglou
is Festival Director of the Balkans Beyond Borders Short Film Festival and
co-founder of the organization Balkans Beyond Borders. She has finished her
studies in International Politics but professionally her expertise is in
digital marketing. In Balkans Beyond Borders she directs the Festival, realizes
workshops on filmmaking and storytelling, and curates all screenings and
cultural events of BBB.
