Aris Anagnostopoulos | University of Kent (original) (raw)

Books by Aris Anagnostopoulos

Aris Anagnostopoulos, Evangelos Kyriakidis, Eleni Stefanou, 2022

Making Heritage Together presents a case study of public archaeology by focusing on the collabora... more Making Heritage Together presents a case study of public archaeology by focusing on the collaborative creation of knowledge about the past with a rural community in central Crete. It is based on a long-term archaeological ethnography project that engaged this village community in collectively researching, preserving and managing their cultural heritage.

This volume presents the theoretical and local contexts for the project, explains the methodology and the project outcomes, and reviews in detail some of the public archaeology actions with the community as examples of collaborative, research-based heritage management. What the authors emphasize in this book is the value of local context in designing and implementing public archaeology projects, and the necessity of establishing methods to understand, collaborate and interact with culturally specific groups and publics. They argue for the implementation of archaeological ethnographic research as a method of creating instances and spaces for collaborative knowledge production. The volume contributes to a greater understanding of how rural communities can be successfully engaged in the management of their own heritage.

It will be relevant to archaeologists and other heritage professionals who aim to maximise the inclusivity and impact of small projects with minimal resources and achieve sustainable processes of collaboration with local stakeholders.

Field. A journal of socially-engaged art criticism, 2021

A book about memory, history and receptions of antiquity in modern Greece, with essays by A. Liak... more A book about memory, history and receptions of antiquity in modern Greece, with essays by A. Liakos, Chr. Koulouri, N. Belavilas, T. Sakellaropoulos, D. Voudouri, D. Plantzos, E. Yialouri, N. Kaltsas, A. Tourta, A. Delivorrias, L. Stefanou, P. Themelis, Y. Hamilakis, O. Sakali.

Τι είναι μνήμη και τι μνημείο; Πώς το παρελθόν γίνεται ιστορία; Γιατί η κλασική αρχαιότητα θεωρείται σημαντικότερη από τον Μεσαίωνα; Πώς επιλέγουμε τι θα ανασκάψουμε και τι θα εκθέσουμε σε ένα μουσείο; Ποιος είναι ο ρόλος των πολιτών στη διαχείριση της πολιτιστικής κληρονομιάς;

Αυτά είναι μερικά από τα ερωτήματα που θίγονται σε αυτό τον συλλογικό τόμο. Ειδικοί από διάφορα επιστημονικά πεδία επιχειρούν να προσεγγίσουν την πολυδιάστατη σχέση της ελληνικής κοινωνίας με το ιστορικό παρελθόν, διερευνώντας θέματα όπως οι μηχανισμοί διαμόρφωσης συλλογικής μνήμης, η προνομιακή μεταχείριση κάποιων ιστορικών περιόδων, η αλληλεπίδραση των πολιτών με τα υλικά κατάλοιπα του παρελθόντος κ.ά. Ο τόμος έχει στόχο να φέρει σε επαφή το ευρύ κοινό με σύγχρονες θεωρητικές εξελίξεις στον τομέα των ανθρωπιστικών επιστημών, να αναδείξει τις ιδεολογικές παραμέτρους της μελέτης του παρελθόντος και να ανασκευάσει ορισμένες στρεβλώσεις που χαρακτηρίζουν τον δημόσιο περί αρχαιολογίας λόγο.

Papers by Aris Anagnostopoulos

Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporain [En ligne], 2021

Theories of abjection usually approach it as a transhistorical and unchanging characteristic of h... more Theories of abjection usually approach it as a transhistorical and unchanging characteristic of human organization, a natural corollary of bodily and psychological functions. However, historical and post-colonial approaches in particular examine abjection as directly linked to the extension of disciplinary techniques of the Western state to colonized populations. Techniques of control and sanitation have thus become synonymous with the civilizing imperative of imperialist expansion. I hereby examine ambivalences towards abjection in post-Ottoman Iraklion, Crete, to imply that they are directly linked to the memory of such civilizing missions. At the beginning of the 20th century, the implementation of colonial technologies of rule by the British occupying forces happened simultaneously with the state-sanctioned urban reforms. These combined processes created a regime of historicity that appears in facetious stories that question its completeness, its political aims and the very foundations of Western civility. In performative speech acts, bodily functions become contested terrains for a critical recollection of state-sanctioned modernization. The purported passage from barbarism to civilization with the end of Ottoman suzerainty is questioned in a way that proposes that the distinctions it has created, between dirty and clean, Turkish and Greek, old and new, country and city, are only a facade for the collusion of state and privileged classes in their effort to modernize the city.

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, Apr 23, 2018

Every summer for the past four years, a small group of Greek and foreign students gather at the m... more Every summer for the past four years, a small group of Greek and foreign students gather at the mountainous village of Gonies Malevyziou in central Crete to participate in the monthly International Field School "Engaging Local Communities in Heritage Management through Archaeological Ethnography". The School is organised by the Heritage Management Organization and the Cultural Association of Gonies. Teaching ethnography to non anthropologists in the field is challenging as it brings multiple and interchanging roles for teachers and students alike. In this process of collective ethnographic learning, where the teaching setting is also our living setting and research setting, we often wonder about the entangled roles in the production of knowledge and interpretations articulated through theoretical readings, daily chores and lived experience. The demands of active research running side by side with methodological instruction and teaching create different expectations that shape the learning experience in unpredictable ways. This paper discusses some of the issues involved in this process: What is the local community members' position as producers, instigators, and transmitters of this knowledge? How are our multiple identities as teachers, researchers, friends, visitors, and locals/non-locals articulated within and outside the field? Finally, how is the knowledge produced managed and controlled by the community and the people responsible for the summer school?

Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 2019

This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, an... more This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, and ethnographic research in which community engagement plays a key role. Two decades after the abandonment of weaving in a depopulated mountainous village of Crete, Greece, a group of researchers invite an artist to turn the village's old school into a weaving studio. Aiming at the active participation of the local community in weaving heritage interpretation, and the interdisciplinary collaboration of art and anthropology, the weaving studio experience provides a fertile ground for discussing the relationships between disciplines, the difficulties of crossing the boundaries of these disciplines, and the challenges of community participation in managing knowledge production. Here we discuss our experience working with an artist in a project between art and research, including various observations, different approaches, and challenges.

The years after 2008 were marked by a burgeoning of grassroots syndicalism in Greece. Following t... more The years after 2008 were marked by a burgeoning of grassroots syndicalism in Greece. Following the events of December 2008, and their seriously overlooked aspect of worker-oriented action and organizing, a great part of the anarchist and extreme left milieu turned to workplace syndicalism as its principal praxis. Drawing from the experience of previous attempts to organize precarious workers, especially in the courier service, these groups and individuals proposed an aggressive, non-institutional syndicalism, based on collective action for the consolidation of individual workplace victories, with the ultimate aim of gaining workers rights for ‘new’ types of workers, marginalized by state-sanctioned trade unions. In the wake of the austerity measures imposed by the Troika, a series of worker’s rights have been irreversibly revoked, leaving little space for the shop-floor negotiation that these collectives have relied upon until now. At the same time, the importance of fighting over small material victories at the workplace becomes a last bastion of resistance against work restructuring, especially in the private sector. ; This presentation attempts a genealogy of novel forms of syndicalism in Greece, examining them within recent ‘circles of struggle’, as an effect of three not necessarily interrelated processes: the crisis of state-sanctioned trade unions as mediators between workers’ interests and capital, especially as part of the socialist arrangement; the proliferation of low-wage service jobs in the last part of the 90s – as part of the neoliberal regulation of work in late capitalism; and the radicalization of younger generations, especially through the no-global movement of 2003, the student protests of 2006 and its culmination in the events of December 2008.

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, Apr 23, 2018

Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies

This article presents a community project developed through the Three Peak Sanctuaries of Central... more This article presents a community project developed through the Three Peak Sanctuaries of Central Crete archaeological project in the village of Gonies in Crete, Greece. We propose that archaeological research should include community projects and involve locals in decision-making. We examine the limitations put on such community programs by state institutions and networks of power. We argue that archaeologists should be involved as experts through engaged long-term ethnographic research that precedes any archaeological or heritage investigation and enables them to understand the position of their research within instituted networks of power and knowledge. We make a case for local engagement that can alter the course of research towards more ethical and sustainable forms. And finally, we discuss the development of public outreach programs in collaboration with the communities themselves.

Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, an... more This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, and ethnographic research in which community engagement plays a key role. Two decades after the abandonment of weaving in a depopulated mountainous village of Crete, Greece, a group of researchers invite an artist to turn the village’s old school into a weaving studio. Aiming at the active participation of the local community in weaving heritage interpretation, and the interdisciplinary collaboration of art and anthropology, the weaving studio experience provides a fertile ground for discussing the relationships between disciplines, the difficulties of crossing the boundaries of these disciplines and the challenges of community participation in managing knowledge production. Here we discuss our experience working with an artist in a project between art and research, including various observations, different approaches, and challenges.

History and Anthropology

ABSTRACT The complex memorial practices that have developed along the street named in commemorati... more ABSTRACT The complex memorial practices that have developed along the street named in commemoration of a massacre of the Christians of the city by Muslim irregulars in 1898 demonstrate an ambivalence towards the transition to the post-ottoman nation-state, one aspect of which is the dialectic that develops between absence and presence of material traces of the Ottoman past. A second aspect is the non-linear temporality within which historical events are remembered. Official commemoration practices have shaped plural memories and often conflicting accounts of the events into a single narrative of modernization, to justify the rebuilding of the city according to western precepts. Reactions to this process did not take the shape of political resistance, but emerged as acts of refusal that create telling absences in the archive and ironic statements that form a genealogy of the ambivalence contemporary Irakliots feel towards the official state and its account of progress to modernity.

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

This article examines the case of Iraklio, Crete, on its passage from the Ottoman regime to the A... more This article examines the case of Iraklio, Crete, on its passage from the Ottoman regime to the Autonomous Cretan Polity in 1898, to interrogate current categories of ethnic boundaries used in historical and social research. It proposes an ‘archaeological’ method of investigating such boundaries in space. It conceives of the city as a field of interaction between the predominant religious groups of Muslim and Christian, and the way these groups have been represented in historical research and public memory. It also shows how understandings of ethnic boundaries were fashioned by colonial, especially British, sanitary and civic planning projects. Finally, it demonstrates how subaltern Muslim spaces, gendered places and ‘dangerous’ neighbourhoods were transformed into paradigmatic cases for understanding spatial segregation in cultural terms.

Public Archaeology, 2016

The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users ar... more The version in the Kent Academic Repository may differ from the final published version. Users are advised to check http://kar.kent.ac.uk for the status of the paper. Users should always cite the published version of record.

Aris Anagnostopoulos, Evangelos Kyriakidis, Eleni Stefanou, 2022

Field. A journal of socially-engaged art criticism, 2021

Bulletin de correspondance hellénique moderne et contemporain [En ligne], 2021

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, Apr 23, 2018

Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal, 2019

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, Apr 23, 2018

Journal of Eastern Mediterranean Archaeology & Heritage Studies

Art/Research International: A Transdisciplinary Journal

This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, an... more This article presents a fieldwork collaboration between contemporary art, “traditional” craft, and ethnographic research in which community engagement plays a key role. Two decades after the abandonment of weaving in a depopulated mountainous village of Crete, Greece, a group of researchers invite an artist to turn the village’s old school into a weaving studio. Aiming at the active participation of the local community in weaving heritage interpretation, and the interdisciplinary collaboration of art and anthropology, the weaving studio experience provides a fertile ground for discussing the relationships between disciplines, the difficulties of crossing the boundaries of these disciplines and the challenges of community participation in managing knowledge production. Here we discuss our experience working with an artist in a project between art and research, including various observations, different approaches, and challenges.

History and Anthropology

Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient

Public Archaeology, 2016

Journal of Modern Greek Studies, 2014

The realist induction to document the life of Greek villages associated with ethographia reflecte... more The realist induction to document the life of Greek villages associated with ethographia reflected the construction of the category of “woman” in late-nineteenth century public discourses as crucial for the continuity of the nation and simultaneously excluded from its political community. An analysis of two ethographies reveals social perceptions of gender roles in the context of the final stages of the “Cretan Question.” Ioannis Damvergis’s “The Martyr” rehearses a nationalist conception of precarious womanhood, which affected a symbolic inversion of female reproductive capacities. Ioannis Kondylakis’s Patouchas offers a more varied account of the social change that accompanied the rise of urban professional classes to power and the close interconnection of gender, kinship, and politics by introducing the figure of the dangerous “new” woman. Both stories were in fact deeply gendered renditions of the antagonism in an all-male political community, in view of the profound social and cultural changes associated with modernity.

Public Archaeology, 2009

In this introductory essay to this volume, we chart and survey an emerging fi eld, that of archae... more In this introductory essay to this volume, we chart and survey an emerging fi eld, that of archaeological ethnography. We show its links and associations with both disciplinary and social-political trends in archaeology and in social anthropology in the last decades, and discuss some of the key recent work that has been carried out under this rubric. We argue that archaeological ethnography needs to be defi ned broadly, as a trans-disciplinary and transcultural space that enables researchers and diverse publics to engage in various conversations, exchanges, and interventions. Material traces from various times are at the centre of this emerging space. The production of his space requires a radical rethinking of the ontological and epistemological basis of archaeology, questioning the moder nist roots of offi cial archaeologies, and demonstrating the existence of other, public discourses, practices and engagements with the material past which can be defi ned as alternative archaeologies. Archaeological ethnography can bring to the fore these alternative engagements without necessarily endorsing their premises, being constantly alert to their political connotations and renderings. The main interconnected facets of archaeological ethnography as we propose it here are its critical refl exivity, its holistic and multi-sited nature, its multi-temporal rather than presentist character, its sensuous and sensory engagement with the world, its political commitment, and its conception as collective and team practice, which transcends the boundaries between the researcher and his or her diverse publics.

Anthropological Theory, 2005

Anthropological Theory, 2004

Public Archaeology, 2009

This volume charts archaeological ethnography as a new territory of engagement and research. Arch... more This volume charts archaeological ethnography as a new territory of engagement and research. Archaeological Ethnography is defined here as a trans-disciplinary and trans-cultural space, a meeting ground for diverse publics and researchers, in archaeology, social anthropology, and potentially other disciplines practices and traditions. It is a space that encourages and fosters dialogue, collaboration and critique on materiality and temporality, on archaeology as a social practice in the present, on the links, interactions and ...

It would be unnecessary to repeat here the proliferation of pubic and community archaeology proje... more It would be unnecessary to repeat here the proliferation of pubic and community archaeology projects worldwide. What we begin by stressing, though, is that while the notion of engaging non-academic audiences in the conduct of archaeological work may seem quite straightforward at first, its practice reveals a bewildering variety of contexts, methods, and outcomes. A course of action that may be valid in one setting may strengthen institutionalized hierarchies in another, or produce unexpectedly detrimental results for the groups involved, or the local environment. What is necessary is not a methodological blueprint, but an agreement on the contingency of social situations and values and a way to place research in the field, in networks of stakeholders and interlocutors, and in instituted power networks. In this presentation, I argue for the introduction of archaeological ethnography in establishing positioned research, which brings context-specific, reflexive considerations into the planning and execution of community engagement and public outreach projects without recourse to programmatic statements. As an example, we examine the ways in which the Three Peak Sanctuaries of Central Crete archaeological project attempts to involve the permanent and seasonal inhabitants of the village of Gonies in Crete, more actively in archaeological research, in view to local sustainable development. The Three Peak Sanctuaries Project in Gonies The " three peak sanctuaries of central Crete " project investigates three Minoan peak sanctuaries that overlook the mountainous part of the province of Malevizi, in central Crete. The project is based in the largest village in the area, Gonies [click second slide], some 35 kilometres down the road connecting Heraklion, the capital city of the island, to the mountainous region of Mylopotamos, to the west of the village. Gonies lies on the foot of a hill called Filiorimos that hosts one of the three peak sanctuaries studied [slide no 3]. The area circumscribed by the sanctuaries is a wide, rocky plateau, covered with pastures and cross-cut by narrow valleys with ample vegetation. The entire area was heavily grazed in the past, while the valleys were cultivated intensively, with cereals, legumes and fruit trees. Most lay fallow now, but village pastures are still in use by some villagers who keep flocks of sheep and goats. The beginning of our project was marked by several seasons of ethnographic fieldwork, which involved initial consultation with local individuals and associations, to establish the social context in which the research was to be carried out, and understand what stakeholders expected from this research. It soon became evident that the village saw in archaeological interest in the area a potential for local development, and invested heavily in it as an agent for community regeneration.

This paper discusses a vision for public archaeology as it can develop in those very common place... more This paper discusses a vision for public archaeology as it can develop in those very common places where remains of the ancient past are somewhat marginal to the heritage industry and unlikely to have a significant impact on the livelihoods of local populations. It presents the community archaeology side of the “Three Peak Sanctuaries of Minoan Crete Project”, based on the mountainous village of Gonies, Crete, Greece. It claims that long-term engagement through archaeological ethnography can transform heritage management issues into a tool for civic engagement, collaborative work, and sustainable development. This is a small-scale, low impact archaeological project that does not depend on a ‘trickle-down’ of knowledge or funds to community stakeholders; instead, it involves locals in seeking out funding and resources that are as crucial for the village as they are for the program itself. It employs the ‘popular assembly’ form to take important decisions on the presentation and dissemination of archaeological knowledge, increasing the participation of such groups as women or the elderly, who are usually left outside decision-making processes. Finally, a collaboratively organized archaeological ethnography summer-school aims to create a blueprint for heritage-based development that is sustainable and increases community control of local knowledge.

The Heraklion massacre of Christians by an incensed Muslim mob on the 25th of August 1898 was her... more The Heraklion massacre of Christians by an incensed Muslim mob on the 25th of August 1898 was heralded in contemporary accounts as the event which precipitated the evacuation of Ottoman forces from the island of Crete, and effectively marked its passage to a modern autonomous state. Several official
attempts have been made over the years to accentuate the meaning of this event and forge a collective memory of it locally, by tying it to narratives of national liberation. While they have succeeded in marking the date as a generic landmark
in national history that proves the barbarous nature of Ottoman rule and therefore justifies the efforts of Cretans (as in fact all Greeks) to liberate themselves, the very space where this massacre – a holy sacrifice, according to these discourses –
took place has remained a largely secular place that stubbornly rejects all efforts of ascription.

The street where the massacre happened, extensively looted and burned almost to the ground, became a contested space already in the aftermath of the events. Official efforts were divided between monumentalization and economic development, since this was at the time the main street leading from the city port to the centre of the city and the hinterland. Responses ‘from below’ were conversely prompted by dire need and the lack of resources, as well as marked indifference towards official commemoration, which is indicative of deep-seated trauma.

The built fabric of the place evokes nowadays not only memories of the massacre, but also later memories of reconstruction and class-skewed urban development
that suffused official nationalist sacralisation efforts. The place memory of this street is a palimpsest which changes according to the position of the speaker or the hearer. It has been named locally ‘delusion street’. This, in order to indicate both
the difference between this wide thoroughfare of European proportions, lined with luxurious mansions, and the haphazard, cramped and miserable abodes of the rest of the city; and the history of its construction, where a major class offensive
turned this from a commercial street of small properties into an elite district of mansions and hotels.

I show here how the built form of the street is an unintentional monument to the aesthetic class politics of an urban sanitation initiative, led by the city’s Christian bourgeois, and the efforts of the lower strata of the city to resume their daily life both in this particular street and the city as a whole. I move in a critical direction against the straightforwardness of ideological uses of space: i.e. that monumental space can be manipulated to fix the ideological creations of structural power, such as the national community or the power of the state. I am arguing instead that the presence of material remains of the past may problematize such creations and imbue them with several unpredicted layers of meaning. I examine how the
material form of this street, as it developed through time, shaped the particular dialectic of commemoration and forgetting inherent in this incomplete project of
Cretan modernity.

Η παρουσίαση αυτή εκφράζει μια αυτοκριτική απορία όσον αφορά τις σχέσεις αρχαιολογίας, ανθρωπολογ... more Η παρουσίαση αυτή εκφράζει μια αυτοκριτική απορία όσον αφορά τις σχέσεις αρχαιολογίας, ανθρωπολογίας και τέχνης. Θα παρουσιάσω την εμπειρία μου από δυο εγχειρήματα ενσωμάτωσης κάποιας μορφής εικαστικής ή παραστατικής τέχνης σε αρχαιολογικά εγχειρήματα τα οποία συμπεριέλαβαν ένα ανθρωπολογικό-εθνογραφικό κομμάτι και προσπαθούσαν μέσω αυτού να εμπλακούν με το «κοινό» εκείνο που ενδιαφερόταν για την αρχαιολογική διαδικασία. Τα δυο αυτά εγχειρήματα είναι το ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα «Καλαυρεία» στο ιερό του Ποσειδώνα στον Πόρο και το ερευνητικό πρόγραμμα «Τρία Ιερά Κορυφής» στις Γωνιές Μαλεβυζίου, ένα χωριό στην Κεντρική Κρήτη. Διερωτώμαι εδώ ποιά είναι η πραγματική σχέση ανάμεσα στην επιθυμία της εθνογραφίας και στην ανάδυση ενός χώρου που μπορεί να ονομαστεί «της τέχνης». Απευθύνομαι κυρίως στο δισταγμό μιας ερευνητικής ομάδας ή υποκειμενικότητας να αφήσει να εκπυχθεί μια κατάσταση η οποία δεν νοηματοδοτείται απαραίτητα κατά τον άξονα μιας εθνογραφικής χρησιμότητας. Συχνά, το πειθαρχικό πλαίσιο στο οποίο κινούνται οι πανεπιστημιακοί ερευνητές επιβάλλει την τεκμηρίωση της τέχνης ως εργαλείου για την ανάδυση εθνογραφικής πληροφορίας. Ακόμα και αν αρνηθούμε την εργαλειακή χρήση καθαυτή δεν μπορούμε να αρνηθούμε πως ο διαχωρισμός αυτός συντάσσει την τέχνη ως ένα μεταφορέα, μια γραμμή φυγής προς το «κάτι άλλο» που αισθανόμαστε ότι λείπει από την επιστημονική μας δουλειά. Ωστόσο, πιστοί στην δυτική επιστημολογία που συντάσσει τις εκφορές και τις σωματοποιημένες μας δράσεις, αρνούμαστε να παραδοθούμε πλήρως σε αυτό το Άλλο της τέχνης, φοβούμενοι ίσως πως αυτό θα σήμαινε διάσχιση των μεθοδολογικών στεγανών που συντάσσουν το υποκείμενο του ερευνητή – και ό,τι αυτά σημαίνουν σε ένα πιο υλικό επίπεδο για το συμβολικό και υλικό κεφάλαιο που το συνοδεύουν. Από την άλλη, υπάρχει ο περιορισμός του γραπτού, επίσης επιβαλλόμενος ολοένα και περισσότερο από την ακαδημία. Ωστόσο, η εμπειρία της εθνογραφικής έρευνας δεν έχει μονάχα να κάνει με τη δημιουργία ενός αποτυπωτικού αρχείου, αλλά με την ίδια την παρουσία στο πεδίο. Κατά κάποιον τρόπο, εθνογραφία δεν είναι μονάχα ένα είδος γραφής, αλλά η κατάσταση την οποία δημιουργεί η παρουσία και δράση της ανθρωπολόγου, καθώς και η διαλεκτική της σχέση με την περιοδική ή πιο μόνιμη απουσία.
Αυτή η δημιουργία καταστάσεων και η σχέση της με τη γλώσσα και τη γραφή είναι κάποια από τα σημεία που θα θίξω και θα ήθελα να αποτελέσουν μέρος του διαλόγου

Στην παρουσίαση αυτή θα προσεγγίσω κάποια από τα ζητήματα που προκύπτουν από την αρχαιολογική εθν... more Στην παρουσίαση αυτή θα προσεγγίσω κάποια από τα ζητήματα που προκύπτουν από την αρχαιολογική εθνογραφία γύρω από ένα Μινωϊκό ιερό κορυφής στο ορεινό χωριό Γωνιές Μαλεβυζίου της κεντρικής Κρήτης. Ένα από τα βασικά αιτήματα της τοπικής κοινότητας όπως αυτό προκύπτει από την ανθρωπολογική έρευνα πεδίου, είναι να χρησιμοποιηθεί με κάποιον τρόπο η αρχαιολογική έρευνα στην περιοχή για να ανανεώσει την κοινότητα του χωριού, η οποία έχει πληγεί από την αστικοποίηση, τις αλλαγές στην αγροτική πολιτική, και τη συνακόλουθη οικονομική μετανάστευση προς το εξωτερικό. Ως ερευνητές, βρισκόμαστε σε ένα πεδίο στο οποίο η έρευνά μας αποκτά μια βαθύτερη κοινωνική σημασία που ξεφεύγει από το «επιστητό» της και ανοίγει χώρους που συνδέουν την κοινωνική παρέμβαση με το περιεχόμενο της αρχαιολογικής γνώσης.

In my presentation today I will talk about a street that has changed many names, some official an... more In my presentation today I will talk about a street that has changed many names, some official and others unofficial, and has achieved iconic status in the history of the city. I will take this street as a vista to the history of the place, and the commemorative practices of the official state. I will argue that what is commemorated is in large part an unintentional commemoration, which was created as a tension when the utopics of the new autonomous state at the beginning of the 20 th century ground to a halt at what I call the "resistance of the real". The official attempts at commemoration are therefore attempts to forget as much as attempts to remember. I will briefly discuss through this example of selective forgetfulness how space itself features in the creation and commemoration of events, not as a mental construct or as representation, but as material, non-human agent. This project could be called an archaeology of the real, meaning not what exists in an empirical sense, but the limit between affective, moral, and ideological states and the "real" in the Lacanian sense, as that which is excessive in relation to representation, escapes symbolic and imaginary presentation, cannot be codified in any legible sense. As I propose here, this real is very much a historic construct, rather than a trans-historical being-in-itself.

The hegemony of Christian bourgeois on the fortunes of the city of Heraklion, Crete, and their po... more The hegemony of Christian bourgeois on the fortunes of the city of Heraklion, Crete, and their political prominence in the autonomous Cretan regime (1898-1913), enabled them to define the past of the city as “Turkish” while attempting to transgress it in a purported march towards civilisation and modernity. Their definition of Tourkopolis collapsed differences, antagonisms, multiplicities and hybrid forms that existed between as well as within the two major religious communities of the city, muslims and christians. Referring to common stereotypes about the oriental city, christian bourgeois managed to subsume this variety under a “master antagonism”: that of the irredentist Greeks against the oppressive Turks. I argue here that this process was interwoven with the creation of a novel sense of public space – as well as its material preconditions – imbued with notions of western citizenship, cleanliness and order. Central to this was the purgation of a pervasive everyday violence, crucial in constituting spaces and boundaries in the “older” city, and the disguise of the class offensive of the rising bourgeoisie under the cloak of peaceful coexistence. At the same time, it demanded a wholesale reworking of the history of the city, which influenced the ways we approach local history to this day. I criticise here notions of cosmopolitanism and coexistence that seem to ignore the central role of violence and antagonism at the heart of this urban society. I argue that their role is to disguise the class antagonisms inherent in processes of modernisation and westernisation. Their role in revisionist, progressive historical accounts may seem benign and liberating, but is in the end historically inaccurate and prevents us from addressing current issues with greater veracity and realism.

Το 1922 το ελληνικό κράτος παραχωρεί με νομοθετικό διάταγμα την άδεια στους Σουηδούς ανασκαφείς τ... more Το 1922 το ελληνικό κράτος παραχωρεί με νομοθετικό διάταγμα την άδεια στους Σουηδούς ανασκαφείς της
Ασίνης να εξάγουν κάποια ευρήματα στη χώρα τους για μελέτη και συντήρηση. Πρόκειται για έναν ιδιότυπο
δανεισμό, ο οποίος συνάπτεται κατά τα φαινόμενα πάνω στις προσωπικές σχέσεις του Σουηδού πρίγκιπα
Γουσταύου με την ελληνική βασιλική οικογένεια. Η εξαγωγή αρχαιοτήτων προς τη Σουηδία λειτούργησε σε ένα
ιδιότυπο καθεστώς εξαίρεσης μέχρι και τη δεκαετία του 1930, παρά την ουσιαστική απαγόρευση εξαγωγής
αρχαιολογικών ευρημάτων που επέβαλε το διάταγμα του 1926. Το 1997, η Berit Wells, τότε
διευθύντρια του Σουηδικού Ινστιτούτου, αγόρασε από κάποιον μη κατονομαζόμενο συλλέκτη ένα φάκελο με
έγγραφα, τα οποία ο ίδιος ισχυρίστηκε πως ανήκαν στο μουσείο Ναυπλίου. Προσεκτικότερη μελέτη του φακέλου
όμως, δείχνει ότι τα έγγραφα αυτά είναι οι φάκελοι των σουηδικών ανασκαφών στην Αργολίδα, που προέρχονται
από το αρχείο της διεύθυνσης αρχαιολογίας του υπουργείου θρησκευτικών και εθνικής παιδείας. Τα έγγραφα που
περιέχονται στο φάκελο φωτίζουν τις λεπτομέρειες της εξαγωγής των ευρημάτων στην πράξη, και αναδεικνύουν
τις συγκρούσεις που η διαδικασία αυτή προκάλεσε με τις τοπικές κοινότητες αλλά και σε κεντρικό επίπεδο.

entanglements journal, 2021

These three poems were written as part of a long term ethnographic and archaeological engagement ... more These three poems were written as part of a long term ethnographic and archaeological engagement in central Crete. They respond to the sense of history that people and place create, as well as the affective aspects of sharing this historicity in the field. They draw inspiration from the themes, wisdom, stories and maxims of the mostly elderly inhabitants of the communities I worked with, but do not claim to represent them in any accurate way. Conversely, it aims to lay open the sediment of affects left by these successive strata of experience in the formation of the writer’s self.

Field. A journal of socially engaged art criticism, 2021

Field. A journal of socially-engaged art criticism, 2021

This article presents a community project developed through the ‘Three Peak Sanctuaries of Centra... more This article presents a community project developed through the ‘Three Peak Sanctuaries of Central Crete’ archaeological project in the village of Gonies in Crete, Greece. We propose that archaeological research should include community projects and involve locals in decision-making. We examine the limitations put on such community programs by state institutions and networks of power. We argue that archaeologists should be involved as experts through engaged long-term ethnographic research that precedes any archaeological or heritage investigation and enables them to understand the position of their research within instituted networks of power and knowledge. We make a case for local engagement that can alter the course of research towards more ethical and sustainable forms. And finally, we discuss the development of public outreach programs in collaboration with the communities themselves.

This is the syllabus for our 2015 Archaeological Ethnography Summer School, to be held in Gonies ... more This is the syllabus for our 2015 Archaeological Ethnography Summer School, to be held in Gonies Malevyziou, Crete, Greece, from June 21st to July 19th. If you are interested in applying, please send an email to inherity.info@gmail.com

Στις αρχές του εικοστού αιώνα ο Σ. Φρόιντ, επιχείρησε μια σύνδεση της νεότευκτης επιστήμης της ψυ... more Στις αρχές του εικοστού αιώνα ο Σ. Φρόιντ, επιχείρησε μια σύνδεση της νεότευκτης επιστήμης της ψυχανάλυσης με την αρχαιολογία. Συγκεκριμένα παρομοίασε την ανθρώπινη ψυχή με χώρο υπό ανασκαφή, όπου οι πρωταρχικές μνήμες παραμένουν κρυμμένες στα παλαιότερα (και άρα βαθύτερα) στρώματα, ενώ οι πιο πρόσφατες βρίσκονται εγγύτερα στην επιφάνεια. Ο ψυχαναλυτής, ως άλλος αρχαιολόγος, οφείλει να ανασκάψει το παρελθόν για να ανασύρει στο πεδίο του συνειδητού τις λανθάνουσες μνήμες. Η φροϋδική παρομοίωση φαντάζει ξεπερασμένη σήμερα. Οι αρχαιολόγοι δεν θεωρούν πλέον ότι μπορούν να αποκαλύψουν «αλήθειες» για το τι συνέβη στην αρχαιότητα, γι' αυτό και ασχολούνται εξίσου με το πώς το παρόν επηρεάζει τους τρόπους πρόσληψης του παρελθόντος. Αντίστοιχα, οι ψυχαναλυτές έχουν απομακρυνθεί από την προσπάθεια να «ανασυστήσουν» τα γεγονότα που γέννησαν τις λανθάνουσες μνήμες του παρελθόντος και εστιάζουν περισσότερο στον τρόπο με τον οποίον οι μνήμες αυτές «αναδύονται» στο παρόν. Πρέπει λοιπόν να απορρίψουμε την φροϋδική παρομοίωση; Ίσως όχι. Τόσο η αρχαιολογία όσο και η ψυχανάλυση αποτελούν γεννήματα της νεωτερικότητας, και περιγράφουν την ανάγκη των σύγχρονων ανθρώπων να διαχειριστούν το παρελθόν τους και να το συνδέσουν με την ατομική ή κοινωνική τους ταυτότητα. Επίσης, η αρχαιολογική πρόσληψη και η ψυχαναλυτική ανάδυση παρουσιάζουν στενές εννοιολογικές σχέσεις, που – παρά τις όποιες διαφορές (π.χ. η πρώτη αφορά συλλογικές πεποιθήσεις ενώ η δεύτερη προσωπικές εμπειρίες) – αξίζει να μελετηθούν διεξοδικά. Τέλος, τα δύο πεδία μοιράζονται κοινές θεματικές, που αφορούν τη σχέση τους χθες με το σήμερα. Αυτός ο κύκλος σεμιναρίων επιχειρεί να αναδείξει τις κοινές συνιστώσες των δυο πεδίων και να διερευνήσει πώς το ένα μπορεί να επηρεάσει το άλλο σε μεθοδολογικό και εννοιολογικό επίπεδο. Οργανώνεται γύρω από 6 ενότητες, σε κάθε μια από τις οποίες θα συνδιαλέγονται ένας αρχαιολόγος ή κοινωνικός ανθρωπολόγος και ένας ψυχαναλυτής πάνω σε συγκεκριμένα θέματα. Θα ακολουθούν ερωτήματα από τον συντονιστή, και στο τέλος θα υπάρχει συζήτηση με συμμετοχή του κοινού. Οι ενότητες βασίζονται σε έννοιες και θέματα που απασχολούν και τα δύο πεδία:

Our Archaeological Ethnography field school, aims to closely investigate the involvement of local... more Our Archaeological Ethnography field school, aims to closely investigate the involvement of locals with their material and intangible heritage in general, and the remains of various heritage sites scattered around the area of our lab-area, Gonies, Crete. We address the issues arising in the documentation, preservation, and dissemination of cultural heritage through our ethnographic research and our public engagement with the village of Gonies, as well as local and national stakeholders. Our goal is to develop a public archaeology program that will contribute to the sustainable development of the area, engage with the locals and render them more active in the protection of their own heritage.

Πολιτιστικές Κληρονομιές: Νέες Αναγνώσεις, Κριτικές Προσεγγίσεις., 2022

Contested Antiquity: Archaeological Heritage and Social Conflict in Modern Greece and Cyprus., 2021

AP: Online Journal in Public Archaeology, 2018

Philioremos means ‘friend of the solitary’. And when on top of this Minoan peak sanctua... more Philioremos means ‘friend of the solitary’. And when on top of this Minoan peak sanctuary, which dates back to c.1800BC, you can feel why. A hill much lower than the imposing Ida Mountains in the south, it nonetheless commands an impressive 360° view of the surrounding mountain valley. Standing on top, usually ducking to avoid the strong, cold wind, you have the impression of being at a distance from everything. The sounds of sheep bells, fragments of speech, the howl of the wind, a passing car in the distance, a dog barking somewhere, village bells, gradually surround you and make you turn inside, to the sound of your beating heart and your panting breath. It is a sense of solitude that contrasts the criss-crossing networks and flows of people, objects, animals, memories, stories, and official bodies that make up this site. These immaterial flows often make no sound that can be picked up in the natural soundscape of the area. But as one draws near the village, the fragments of sound turn into a profusion of voices.