Negotiating differences in mixed marriages - Christians and Muslims in Greece

Christian - Muslim mixed couples in Greece challenge marital norms and group identifications through re-negotiation of religious affiliations, identifications and practices. They are sociologically significant because they contest historically and socially constructed ethnic, cultural and religious differentiations in the specific Greek context. These couples link nuanced and subtle dimensions of conjugal mixedness in the family formation process with Muslim migration and the indigenous Muslim minority communities. My doctoral research analyses religious negotiations, practices and strategies of mixed Christian - Muslim families in Greece and investigates intergenerational transmissions and interactions between mixed couples and extended families in transnational and translocal networks of social relationships. The research draws on in-depth interviews with Christian and Muslim participants of diverse socioeconomic characteristics and national background. Analysing mixed marriages according to the institutional affiliation to Islam and Orthodox Christianity captured Christian - Muslim intermarriage with different Muslim populations: Near, Middle East and South East Asian Muslim-born immigrants, native minority Muslims and Greek converts to Islam. I follow intermarriage as an iterative process of trajectories and awakenings to mixedness and present identity shifts and exchanges, negotiations and practices during the family formation process. Novel data on the everyday and festive, religious and social practices of mixed and homogamous families shed light on how mixed couples put their worldviews into practice and how religious practice is incorporated into mixed family life. Conjugal mixedness is reproduced and represented, asserted and contested in religious, cultural and ethnic transmissions, parenting, “multiple-mixing” upbringing and naming of children in Christian – Muslim families. Intermarriage has acquired social visibility in Greece, even though is far from being integrated as a social norm. Mixed couples live, reside and locate themselves within the specific socioeconomic context of economic and humanitarian crisis in contemporary Greece. There are different lifestyle patterns of multilevel being, living and belonging of mixed couples within Greek society. Discrimination, racism and xenophobia against immigrants and minorities provoke social exclusion and precariousness for some mixed couples that are socially visible and mostly affected by phenotypical prejudice. Social processes of exclusion do not result only from ‘being’ a foreigner or an immigrant, they also result from ‘being with’ a foreigner or an immigrant. Religion as a social signifier of mixedness differs significantly from one relationship to another. The many facets of differentiation in mixed Christian and Muslim relationships are combined to produce distinctive and unique forms of conjugal mixedness in a wide repertoire of moral, cultural and religious systems. My research contributes knowledge in the study of intermarriage and mixedness by bringing religion into focus and analysing dynamic and negotiable self-identifications with ethno-cultural and religious affiliations and practices in Christian – Muslim conjugal mixedness and family formation. It takes the analysis beyond a simple focus on religion to link family with migration and minoritisation social processes and reveal complicated border crossings through conversion, intersections between gender, class, power and agency and potential of intermarriage for sociocultural transformations through interactions, exchanges and reciprocity of mixed couples and their extended families in transnational and translocal social networks

Minority Education in Greece: Thrace Muslim Teachers’ Approaches and Views

In this paper, our focus is on the education of children from the Muslim Minority in Western Thrace, an administrative region of Greece. Education in Thrace is a sensitive issue that affects and is influenced by the bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey. More specifically, our research aimed to explore teachers of Muslim origins’ approaches, views and beliefs regarding Muslim students’ schooling. To this end, our research explored these issues in a Case Study using semi-structured interviews of Muslim teachers in Thrace. Our findings show that the policy of positive discrimination that had been applied to members of the Muslim Minority of Western Thrace for more than twenty years, has had positive results, but has now reached its limits. We believe that the findings of our research can inform policy makers, colleges and schools of education, as well as teachers by providing a better understanding of Muslim teachers’ prospects and needs

Minority Education in Greece: Thrace Muslim Teachers’ Approaches and Views

In this paper, our focus is on the education of children from the Muslim Minority in Western Thrace, an administrative region of Greece. Education in Thrace is a sensitive issue that affects and is influenced by the bilateral relations between Greece and Turkey. More specifically, our research aimed to explore teachers of Muslim origins’ approaches, views and beliefs regarding Muslim students’ schooling. To this end, our research explored these issues in a Case Study using semi-structured interviews of Muslim teachers in Thrace. Our findings show that the policy of positive discrimination that had been applied to members of the Muslim Minority of Western Thrace for more than twenty years, has had positive results, but has now reached its limits. We believe that the findings of our research can inform policy makers, colleges and schools of education, as well as teachers by providing a better understanding of Muslim teachers’ prospects and needs

Migration in the Southern Balkans: From Ottoman Territory to Globalized Nation States

Migration; History, general; Cities, Countries, Regions; Demograph

Mediating the nation: news, audiences and identities in contemporary Greece

This thesis investigates the relationship between media and identities in contemporary Greece. Acknowledging the diversity of Greek society, the study follows the circulation of discourses about the nation and belonging and contrasts the articulation of identities at a local level with the discourses about the nation in the national media. Through a series of case studies I examine how people of Greek, Cypriot and Turkish origins living in Athens articulate their identities through everyday practices and media use. At the same time I investigate the television news discourse which is nationalized, largely projecting an essentialist representation of identity that does not reflect the complexity of the society it claims to describe. The study follows the shifts in peoples' discourses according to context and observes that it is in their encounters with the news media, compared to other contexts, that some of the informants express a more closed discourse about difference and belonging. This points to the power of the media, through a number of practices, to raise the boundaries for inclusion and exclusion in public life. Hence, while for the majority of the Greek speakers the news is a common point of reference, for the Turkish speakers it is often a reminder of their `second class citizenship' and exclusion from public life. Public discourse, much dominated by the media in the case of Greece, is a complex web of power relations, subject to constant negotiation. This is an interdisciplinary study that draws upon a number of theories and approaches by means' of a theoretical and methodological triangulation. The thesis aims to contribute primarily to two literatures, namely media and audience studies —particularly the developments towards a theory of mediation — and the literature that addresses the relationship between media and identity. In the light of the analysis of the empirical findings the study argues that neither of the hitherto dominant paradigms in theorising the relationship between media and identity (namely, strong media/weak identities and weak media/powerful identities) is adequate to describe what emerges as a multifaceted process. What is proposed is an approach that takes into account both a top-down and a bottom-up perspective. Media and identities should be understood in a dialectical fashion where neither is foregrounded from the start. The concepts of culture and the nation are understood through a historical perspective that recognises their constructedness and diversity. Identity is conceptualised as relational and performative rather than fixed and stable

Gypsy Identities in Europe: policy and research: Πρακτικά επιστηµονικού συνεδρίου (Ιωάννινα 2003)

Περιλαμβάνονται τα πλήρη κείμενα ή οι περιλήψεις των εισηγήσεων που έγιναν κατά τη διάρκεια της 2ης ημέρας (18.10.2003) του επιστημονικού συνεδρίου με θέμα Ταυτότητες τσιγγάνων στην Ευρώπη: έρευνα και πολιτικές, Ιωάννινα 17-18 Οκτωβρίου 2003

Balkan Roma immigrants in Greece: An initial approach to the traits of a migration flow.

 In this paper we examine aspects of Balkan Roma migration toGreece, which started in early 90s. Different Roma groups have been settled inGreecesince then or are continuing to engage in seasonal work in the country. The initial findings of our ongoing field research are presented in this paper. At present are no other independent studies dealing directly with the profile of Balkan Roma immigration inGreece. The aim of this paper is to identify the integration features of the various Roma groups residing inGreece. The findings in our research support the notion that there exist a strong relation between the degree of previous social integration of the Roma in their country of origin and the one inGreece. The location they select to settle, the type of settlement they create and the types of employment they undertake inGreeceare detrimental to their integration in the host society. Additionally, the existence, prior to their settlement in the country, of social or family ties in the host country, as well as the presence of other type of social networks are conducive to their integration. Roma groups, who migrated toGreece, on the contrary of the common belief, have utilized and were assisted by the regularization programmes for irregular immigrants. Findings are also indicate that some of the most integrated sedentary Roma groups have undergone an “invisibility” process, which has resulted in them being perceived as non-Roma in the host country. What has been observed is that Roma groups adapted to state policies and administrative practices inGreece. Some of the better integrated groups were favored by the legislative immigration framework as it was implemented in a non-austere and easy to be infringed manner.