'Naming the Baby': Music and boundary identities in Zoupanokhoria
Main Article Content
Abstract
The article focuses on the local music and dance of Zoupanochoria, a cluster of villages lying on the boundaries of the different geographic areas of the Greek parts of Epirus and Macedonia. Identifying music with either side of the boundary results in contestations over locals’ identity and sparks dispute over symbolic belonging to distinct musical traditions and their geographic origin. The research shows that musicians blend elements (tunes, rhythms, instrumentation) of both music traditions. Based on the repertories performed in two community festivities, the article relates their different structure and organization with alternative expressions of belonging and shows the resolution of dispute and discontent that the local dance Lotzia provides. This border situation resonates metaphorically with the Greek tradition to name the newborn baby after one of the grandparents, thus signifying bonds with the family. However, highlighting bonds with a specific part of the family can engender disputes. This metaphor can be applied to many forms of community solidarity-building in Greece and the wider Balkans, as the one examined here.
Downloads
Article Details
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
3. While AEER adopts the above strategies in line with best practices common to the open access journal community, it urges authors to promote use of this journal (in lieu of subsequent duplicate publication of unaltered papers) and to acknowledge the unpaid investments made during the publication process by peer-reviewers, editors, copy editors, programmers, layout editors and others involved in supporting the work of the journal.
References
Boellstorf, Tom, and Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, T.L. Taylor. 2012. Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Bohlman, Philip. 1988. The study of folk music in the modern world. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press.
Caraveli, Anna. 1985. “The Symbolic Village. Community Born in Performance”. The Journal of American Folklore 98, no 389: 259-286.
Caraveli, Anna. 1982. “The Song beyond the Song Aesthetics and Social Interaction in Greek Folksong”. The Journal of American Folklore 95, no 376: 129-158.
Clifford, James. 1986. “Introduction: partial truths” In Writing culture: the poetics and politics of ethnography, edited by James Clifford and G.E. Marcus, 1-26. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Cowan, Jane K. 1990. Dance and the body politic in Northern Greece. New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Hudson, Ray. 2006. “Regions and place: music, identity and place.” Progress in Human Geography 30, no. 5: 626-634.
Danforth, Loring. 1995. The Macedonian Conflict: Ethnic Nationalism in a Transnational World. Princeton and New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Danforth, Loring and Van Boeschoten, Riki. 2012. Children of the Greek Civil War: Refugees and the Politics of Memory. London: The University of Chicago Press.
Eriksen, Thomas Hyland. 2010. Small Places, Large Issues: an Introduction to Social and Cultural Anthropology. London: Pluto.
Karakalpakidis, Giannis. 2009. “Τα χάλκινα πνευστά στις λαϊκές ορχήστρες της Δυτικής Μακεδονίας και το τοπικό γλωσσικό ιδίωμα.” BA Thesis, TEI Epirou. Retrieved from http://apothetirio.teiep.gr/xmlui/handle/123456789/438 [20 November 2019].
Karakasidou, Anastasia. 1997. Fields of Wheat, Hills of Blood: Passages to Nationhood in Greek Macedonia 1870-1990. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
Kavouras, P. 1990. “Glendi and xenitia: the poetics of exile in rural Greece (Olymbos, Karpathos).” PhD thesis, The New School for Social Research. Retrieved from http://thesis.ekt.gr/thesisBookReader/id/11500#page/1/mode/2up [20 November 2019].
Kavouras, Pavlos. 1992. “Dance at Olymbos, Karpathos: cultural change and political confrontations”. Ethnografica 8: 173-190.
Loutzaki, Erini. 1997. “The Dance identity of a Region. The Case of the Dodecanesian Dance. A Study Proposal” Proceedings. Musica e Storia 5: 229-242.
Migdal, Joel S., ed. 2004. Boundaries and Belongings: States and Societies in the Struggle to Shape Identities and Practices. Cambridge: The Press Syndicate of the University of Cambridge.
Montsenigos, Spyros. 1958. Νεοελληνική μουσική. Συμβολή εις την ιστορίαν της. Athens.
Pistrick, Eckehard. 2015. Performing Nostalgia: Migration Culture and Creativity in South Albania. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing.
Rabinow, Paul. 1977. Reflections on fieldwork in Morocco. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Reily, Suzel A., and Katherine Brucher, eds. 2018. The Routledge Companion to the Study of Local Musicking. New York and London: Routledge.
Rombou-Levidi, Marica. 2016. Επιτηρούμενες ζωές. Μουσική, χορός και διαμόρφωση της υποκειμενικότητας στη Μακεδονία. Athens: Αλεξάνδρεια.
Rombou-Levidi, Marica. 2018. «Εδώ καπούτ»: Η βία του συνόρου. Μετανάστευση, εθνικοφροσύνη και φύλο στην ελληνοαλβανική μεθόριο. Athens: Αλεξάνδρεια.
Silverman, Carol. 2012. Romani Routes. Cultural Politics & Balkan Music in Diaspora. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Small, Christopher. 1998. Musicking: the meanings of performing and listening. Middletown: Wesleyan University Press.
Stock, Jonathan, and Chou Chiener. 2008. “Fieldwork at home: European and Asian perspectives” In Shadows in the field: New perspectives for fieldwork in Ethnomusicology, edited by Gregory Barz and Timothy J. Colley, 108-123. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Stokes, Martin, ed. 1994. Ethnicity, identity and music: the musical construction of place. Oxford and Providence: Berg Publishers.
Theodosiou, Sissy. 2011. Authenticity, Ambiguity, Location: Gypsy Musicians on the Greek-Albanian Border. VDM Verlag.
Todorova, Maria. 2004. Balkan Identities: Nation and Memory. London: Hurst & Company.
Turino, Thomas. 2008. Music as Social Life: the politics of participation. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press.
Tziovas, Dimitris. 2003. Greece and the Balkans: Identities, Perceptions and Cultural Encounters since the Enlightenment. Aldershot and Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Ltd.
Wilson, Thomas M., and Hastings Donnan. eds. 2012. A Companion to Border Studies. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
Links
Anon., 2016. “Κοινότητα Πενταλόφου: Eoρτασμός 200 χρόνων από την κτίση του πολιούχου Αγίου Αθανασίου (1816-2016)”, available at http://xronos-kozanis.gr/kinotita-pentalofou-eortasmos-200-chronon-apo-tin-ktisi-tou-poliouchou-agiou-athanasiou-1816-2016/ (accessed on 27/11/2019).
KSS, 2016. “11th International Konitsa Summer School”. Available at https://www.border-crossings.eu/konitsa/2016 (accessed 04/02/2021).
VETh, 2020. “About”. Available at https://www.facebook.com/groups/50529484933/ (accessed on 04/02/2020)