Mirrors, Myths and Metaphors: Ethnography and Greece in Late Modernity, Introductory Reflections

Abstract

Mirrors, Myths and Metaphors:Ethnography-ing Greece in Late Modernity, Introductory Reflections Anastasia Karakasidou and Fotini Tsibiridou Mirrors have become virtually ubiquitous in modern global consumer culture (Appadurai 1986, 1996). However, when placed appropriately, mirrors can create reflections of reflections, revealing the appealing allure of infinite possibilities (Abu-Lughod 1989). Anthropologists with an ethnographic gaze have tried to capture the images reflected in the mirrors of European identity (Herzfeld 1987). Desired images create new subjectivities which—even though they may be local, ethnic, or religious—are mirror reflections of the self that desires to look and feel European. Mirrors of the nation operate in the same manner, but they are gendered mirrors that project on the female body the bio-politics of power and the anxieties about population decline. Mirrors present a myriad of reflections regarding cultural formations (Fisher 1998; Handelman 1990; Mankekar 1999) which result from creativity, diffusion, coercion, manipulation, or hegemony. Myths, on the other hand, are said to be as old as humankind. Present in all human social groups, they derive their importance in part from the fact that they can be recounted and transmitted orally. As Claude Lévi-Strauss and others have pointed out, myths deal with cosmological or social contradictions. The word "myth" has also become synonymous with any kind of "master narrative," ever since Michel Foucault urged all of us to trace power behind every aspect of socio-cultural formation. In a sense, ascertaining power has become a problem for anthropologists, and it is an issue taken for granted by the authors of the essays collected in this volume—i.e., how can one best locate power through ethnographic studies on cultural events, local narratives, and the reproduction of the nation and education? Metaphors are widespread and pervasive (Fernandez 1974). Anything can be used as a metaphor, and anything can be described in terms of a metaphor. New vocabularies and cultures on the global scene are rendered into local powerful metaphors, and metaphors of metaphors. [End Page 217] For instance, the metaphor of the "Cunning Old Men" was used to express dissatisfaction, helplessness, and self-mockery in the clandestine resistance of the Slav-Macedonians in Northern Greece. The papers collected here weave their narratives around the topic of "mirrors, myths, and metaphors," offering an anthropological view of Greek society during late modernity. Doing ethnography about any society and culture is a tricky business, and one that remains poorly defined. The quest for the exotic has been critically scrutinized over the last few decades, but not necessarily completely abandoned. American anthropologists have attempted to articulate more uniform methodologies, but focused mainly on the ethics of the participant-observation research of the ethnographers (Marcus and Fisher 1986). American anthropologists are now struggling to create more balanced relations with the subject-objects of their ethnographic inquiries. Taken as a whole, the papers in this special issue attempt to clarify what makes anthropology a useful approach to understanding Greek society today (Abèles 1996; Pouchepasass 2000; Vibert 2002). The anthropology of Greece has undergone significant changes since its inception in the mid-twentieth century. In the 1950s, research was conducted largely by foreign scholars, working in rural areas, and guided by epistemological assumptions concerning the structure, the function, the values and implicit homogeneity of Greek culture and society (Papataxiarchis 2003). The modernization paradigm provided the master narrative that shaped the interests and efforts of these early ethnographers, projecting a totalizing discourse through most of the Cold War era. Several global developments facilitated the shifts in anthropological understandings of Greece, including the succession of new generations of Greek anthropologists, trained mostly in Europe and the United States. Such developments pushed anthropological scholarship about Greece in new theoretical and methodological directions. In the 1970s, attention shifted away from studies of self-sustaining structures and functions of social institutions, and came to focus more on historical trends and socioeconomic differentiation (Damianakos 1978, 1981; Papataxiarchis and Paradelis 1993). The 1980s brought new theoretical trends. The trends from gender studies and cultural studies were particularly influential (Dubish 1986; Loizos and Papataxiarchis 1991). The 1990s witnessed yet another shift to cultural critique, post-modernism, and notions of culture as an interpretative 'text' (Tsibiridou...