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Albanian Families' History and Heritage Making at the Crossroads of New

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Albanian Families' History and Heritage Making at the Crossroads of New Voicing the stories of the excluded: Albanian families’ history and heritage making at the crossroads of new and old homes Eleni Vomvyla UCL Institute of Archaeology Thesis submitted for the award of Doctor in Philosophy in Cultural Heritage 2013 Declaration of originality I, Eleni Vomvyla confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. Signature 2 To the five Albanian families for opening their homes and sharing their stories with me. 3 Abstract My research explores the dialectical relationship between identity and the conceptualisation/creation of history and heritage in migration by studying a socially excluded group in Greece, that of Albanian families. Even though the Albanian community has more than twenty years of presence in the country, its stories, often invested with otherness, remain hidden in the Greek ‘mono-cultural’ landscape. In opposition to these stigmatising discourses, my study draws on movements democratising the past and calling for engagements from below by endorsing the socially constructed nature of identity and the denationalisation of memory. A nine-month fieldwork with five Albanian families took place in their domestic and neighbourhood settings in the areas of Athens and Piraeus. Based on critical ethnography, data collection was derived from participant observation, conversational interviews and participatory techniques. From an individual and family group point of view the notion of habitus led to diverse conceptions of ethnic identity, taking transnational dimensions in families’ literal and metaphorical back- and-forth movements between Greece and Albania. Jiggling between the personal and the national, history making reproduced in intergenerational narratives, to fulfil individuals’ identity requirements and shifting ideologies of the present. The creation of heritage through domestic artefacts and embodied practices, revealed identity continuities and ruptures in the diasporic realm, where the remembrance of home away from ‘home’ did not imply the uncritical endorsement of its heritage. My study concludes by underpinning the salience of the personal subject developing a reciprocal relationship with the social, the cultural and the ethnic in constructing identity, history and heritage. Different personal experiences and sociocultural backgrounds lead to different narratives of negotiating identity, history and heritage meaning, explaining notions of heterogeneity and multivocality in the same ethnic group or family. 4 Table of contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................................................ 4 List of figures .................................................................................................................................................. 11 List of tables .................................................................................................................................................... 13 Acknowledgments ......................................................................................................................................... 14 CHAPTER 1 ......................................................................................................... 16 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................. 16 1.1 The Research Setting ............................................................................................................................ 16 1.2 Research motives, aim and questions ............................................................................................ 19 1.3 Intended contribution and significance ........................................................................................ 22 1.4 Overview of thesis.................................................................................................................................. 25 CHAPTER 2 ......................................................................................................... 33 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ............................................................................... 33 2.1 Working definitions of terms and concepts ................................................................................. 33 2.1.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 33 2.1.2 Identity ................................................................................................................................................................. 33 2.1.3 Family.................................................................................................................................................................... 38 2.1.3.1 Distinction between the ‘family’ and ‘household’ concepts ................................................ 41 2.1.4 Heritage, Past and History ........................................................................................................................... 42 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 47 2.2. Identity formation in uprooting and regrounding ................................................................... 49 2.2.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 49 2.2.2 Cultural identity and migrancy .................................................................................................................. 49 2.2.3 Transnationalism and the formation of transnational families .................................................. 53 2.2.4 Transnational families: constructing belonging in cross-border links and home-building ............................................................................................................................................................................................. 55 5 2.2.5 Identity and Class in Bourdieu’s concepts of habitus, capital and field ................................... 60 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 63 2.3 Memory in uprooting and regrounding ......................................................................................... 64 2.3.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 64 2.3.2 Forms of memory in focus and the socialisation of memory ....................................................... 65 2.3.3 The cultural tools of memory ..................................................................................................................... 70 2.3.4 Memory and identity ...................................................................................................................................... 72 2.3.5 Memory and Migrancy ................................................................................................................................... 74 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 76 2.4 Heritage and history making in uprooting and regrounding ................................................ 78 2.4.1 Introduction ....................................................................................................................................................... 78 2.4.2 Approaches of constructing heritage ...................................................................................................... 78 2.4.2.1 Top-down nature approaches .......................................................................................................... 79 2.4.2.2 Bottom-up nature approaches: the democratisation of heritage and history ............ 83 2.4.2.2.1 Subaltern heritages and the intangibility of heritage ................................................... 83 2.4.2.2.2 Public history: toward a participatory historical culture ........................................... 87 2.4.3 The making of history and heritage in migrancy ............................................................................... 92 Summary .......................................................................................................................................................... 99 CHAPTER 3 ....................................................................................................... 102 THE ALBANIAN FAMILIES IN AN ALBANIAN AND GREEK CONTEXT .................... 102 3.1 Introduction .......................................................................................................................................... 102 3.2 The Albanian context ......................................................................................................................... 102 3.2.1 The Albanian culture and the structure of the family................................................................... 103 3.2.2 Historical background ...............................................................................................................................
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