Month: September 2023

(22-23/9/2023)

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)
• P. Paka (Administrative Staff of the CBG/Lab)

Conference Website: https://www.facebook.com/thessconf23/