- Greece
This thesis explores and critically reflects upon same-‐sex subjectivities, political discourses and collective forms of belonging developed between activist lesbians in Athens during 2013-‐2015. I argue that sexual subjectivity emerges... more
This thesis explores and critically reflects upon same-‐sex subjectivities, political discourses and collective forms of belonging developed between activist lesbians in Athens during 2013-‐2015. I argue that sexual subjectivity emerges out of the constant negotiation of normative hetero-‐gendered rules rather than the transgression of gender norms. I suggest that the temporality of the Greek lesbian feminist/ LGBT/ queer movement is marked by a time of coincidence in which the Greek crisis, different phases from the western history of the LGBT movement and local feminist histories collapse
and produce ambiguities, tensions and potentialities. In particular, I argue that the emergent queer feminist movement goes hand in hand with haunting and displaced notions of the self. As contemporary vagabonds, lesvies and queer feminists embody the haunted subject of the crisis before the actual crisis, she is not taken by surprise and continues crafting space for herself as usual. I demonstrate that the emergence and building of queer feminist communities in juxtaposition to women’s narratives of same-‐ sex sexuality bring to the fore classed distinctions, generational discrepancies and
ambivalent notions of belonging. I critique the notion of queer as straightforward transgression and suggest that it functions as an empty signifier which produces discursive ambiguities. Finally, I probe the interrelation between gender and sexual difference in producing sexual subjectivities.
Chapter 1 and 2 introduce the framework, both methodological and
ethnographic, for the study of same-‐sex sexuality in Greece. In Part A I focus on temporalities, identities and community-‐building. In particular, in chapter 3 and 4 I present local LGBT and lesbian feminist histories and politics to demonstrate the notion of the haunting queer subject that temporally and spatially disrupts historical linearity, spatial arrangements, and crisis-‐ informed narratives. Chapter 5 looks at the particularities of queer feminist community-‐building and its complexities to suggest the blurring between the individual and the collective, inner/outer worlds. From women’s
collective efforts to build spaces and histories I move onto Part B to the makings of lesvia subjectivity. In particular, Chapter 6 explores sexual subjectivities in generational time, Chapter 7 and 8 considers the interrelationship between gender and sexuality whilst Chapter 9 explores the classed underpinnings of lesvia and queer sociality. My analysis of collective and individual aspects of women’s same-‐sex life demonstrates that transgressing is not the canon of queerness and that gender norms
also formulate the way women talk and live their same-‐sex sexuality. At the same time, lesvies and queer feminists bring to the fore the differential distribution of precarity in crisis-‐ ridden Greece which presupposes subjects who are familiar with individual and collective states of unbelonging. These subjects are constantly on the move, they are used to feel strangers at home, and to craft worlds out of scratch. Strategies which ensure the management of unbelonging-‐ both individually and collectively-‐ are continually developed on an everyday basis, and formulate lesvia and queer ways of life in Athens.
and produce ambiguities, tensions and potentialities. In particular, I argue that the emergent queer feminist movement goes hand in hand with haunting and displaced notions of the self. As contemporary vagabonds, lesvies and queer feminists embody the haunted subject of the crisis before the actual crisis, she is not taken by surprise and continues crafting space for herself as usual. I demonstrate that the emergence and building of queer feminist communities in juxtaposition to women’s narratives of same-‐ sex sexuality bring to the fore classed distinctions, generational discrepancies and
ambivalent notions of belonging. I critique the notion of queer as straightforward transgression and suggest that it functions as an empty signifier which produces discursive ambiguities. Finally, I probe the interrelation between gender and sexual difference in producing sexual subjectivities.
Chapter 1 and 2 introduce the framework, both methodological and
ethnographic, for the study of same-‐sex sexuality in Greece. In Part A I focus on temporalities, identities and community-‐building. In particular, in chapter 3 and 4 I present local LGBT and lesbian feminist histories and politics to demonstrate the notion of the haunting queer subject that temporally and spatially disrupts historical linearity, spatial arrangements, and crisis-‐ informed narratives. Chapter 5 looks at the particularities of queer feminist community-‐building and its complexities to suggest the blurring between the individual and the collective, inner/outer worlds. From women’s
collective efforts to build spaces and histories I move onto Part B to the makings of lesvia subjectivity. In particular, Chapter 6 explores sexual subjectivities in generational time, Chapter 7 and 8 considers the interrelationship between gender and sexuality whilst Chapter 9 explores the classed underpinnings of lesvia and queer sociality. My analysis of collective and individual aspects of women’s same-‐sex life demonstrates that transgressing is not the canon of queerness and that gender norms
also formulate the way women talk and live their same-‐sex sexuality. At the same time, lesvies and queer feminists bring to the fore the differential distribution of precarity in crisis-‐ ridden Greece which presupposes subjects who are familiar with individual and collective states of unbelonging. These subjects are constantly on the move, they are used to feel strangers at home, and to craft worlds out of scratch. Strategies which ensure the management of unbelonging-‐ both individually and collectively-‐ are continually developed on an everyday basis, and formulate lesvia and queer ways of life in Athens.
Research Interests:
Greece was placed first or second among European Union countries with high rates of abortion throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Rather than asking why there are so many abortions in Greece, I have taken abortion as a useful point of entry... more
Greece was placed first or second among European Union countries with high rates of abortion throughout the 1980s and 1990s. Rather than asking why there are so many abortions in Greece, I have taken abortion as a useful point of entry for studying Greek configurations of female personhood. Throughout this research, I engage with multiple discourses- erotas, suffering, abjection, self- control- and levels of analysis- from the site of the couple to the operation room- to reveal a class of subjectivity that is distinctly different from the western cultural ideal of the autonomous liberal subject.
Research was conducted through interviews with six women and a gynecologist. In discussing abortion and contraception, women are craving a particular dream of the couple as eternal oneness, while simultaneously realize the aloneness that being part of a couple entails. In addition, women’s experiences with abortion reveal a self that is trapped between a mindful body and a fragmented body. Thus, the female subject that emerges from these narratives is diffuse, filled with contradictory discourses.
Research was conducted through interviews with six women and a gynecologist. In discussing abortion and contraception, women are craving a particular dream of the couple as eternal oneness, while simultaneously realize the aloneness that being part of a couple entails. In addition, women’s experiences with abortion reveal a self that is trapped between a mindful body and a fragmented body. Thus, the female subject that emerges from these narratives is diffuse, filled with contradictory discourses.
Research Interests:
This is a polyvocal paper exploring some of the debates which have shaped gender-queer scholarship and activism in Southeast Europe (SEE). Discussing four key themes-authors' backgrounds, situatedness in theory, understandings of Europe... more
This is a polyvocal paper exploring some of the debates which have shaped gender-queer scholarship and activism in Southeast Europe (SEE). Discussing four key themes-authors' backgrounds, situatedness in theory, understandings of Europe and notions of belonging (›we-ness‹)-the authors paint a picture of gender-queer scholarship and activism in SEE as a fragmented intellectual landscape fraught with multiple struggles and points of contention. The paper offers an overview of two key axes of contention. One has been the differential and racialized distribution of claims to progress, civilization or Europeanness within the SEE region. Another point of contention is the question of whether it is possible to articulate a joint struggle for social justice which would bring together the concern for the problems caused by unjust economic redistribution with those induced by unjust patterns of cultural recognition. With its theoretically nuanced reflections regionally situated within SEE, the paper also raises the question of what gender-queer scholars and activists in SEE are revealing about progressive politics beyond the Area Studies framework.
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I began writing the labyrinth after two years of intensive fieldwork with queer and lesbian feminist collectives in Athens, Greece. I left with five notebooks, twenty-five life history interviews, two autobiographical diaries and a... more
I began writing the labyrinth after two years of intensive fieldwork with queer and lesbian feminist collectives in Athens, Greece. I left with five notebooks, twenty-five life history interviews, two autobiographical diaries and a collection of lesbian, feminist, gay, queer and trans magazines, journals and articles. This book is a journey to crafting a feminine authorial voice, a coming-out story, a troubled encounter with multiple others that moulded my anthropological self in profound ways, a semi-fictional poetic ethnography in-becoming that lacks characters, plot and telos.
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In the last couple of years, local queer theorists underline the emergence of 'a new queer critique' in the Greek public sphere. In this context, this article draws from ethnographic and archival material to look at the troubles of... more
In the last couple of years, local queer theorists underline the emergence of 'a new queer critique' in the Greek public sphere. In this context, this article draws from ethnographic and archival material to look at the troubles of cultural translation. By providing a cross-temporal re-reading of queer and feminist archives, I argue that queer and queerness in Greece goes hand in hand with a non-linear approach to time and historiography. Non-linearity is examined as a critical method and an ethnographic/ historiographical approach that significantly shifts the way narrations, stories, and histories can be recorded, documented, told, written and rewritten in Greece. The cultural translation of queer opens a critical rethinking of names, identity categories and traumas, yet it also enacts the resignification of the language used to understand strangeness and otherness.
Research Interests: Gender Studies, Queer Theory, Social and Cultural Anthropology, Gender and Sexuality, Anthropology of Gender, and 9 moreLGBT Issues, Mediterranean Studies, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Sexuality Studies, LGBTq Activisms, Queer Activism, Greek Ethnography, Queer Anthropology, and Feminist and Queer Social Movements
What is this place we call “home”? How does it feel? How do lesbians and feminists inhabit it? What kind of affects emerge in this process? What does “coming- out” entail? How do feminists and lesbians imagine and talk about home? This... more
What is this place we call “home”? How does it feel? How do lesbians and feminists inhabit it? What kind of affects emerge in this process? What does “coming- out” entail? How do feminists and lesbians imagine and talk about home? This article explores the narratives of activist lesbians and feminists in Athens on home and belonging. It unravels the notion of “home” as an affective spatiotemporal category on which activist lesbians and feminists attach multiple and divergent meanings and desires: From the childhood home experienced as exile and imbued with feelings of estrangement and loss to the family home seen as a site of remembrance and self- reconciliation. The notion of home is further explored in relation to a non-confessional mode of “coming- out” as well as a kind of “arrival” to an identity. The makings of the queer and lesbian feminist community are loaded with homely desires and fantasies of an ideal queer home. All in all, home is represented as a place to which one arrives, leaves, returns, moves back-forth, attaches to people, relationships, objects and smells, only to realize that she/he already feels a “stranger at home.”
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Η έρευνα «Girls on the move in Greece» πραγματοποιήθηκε από το Κέντρο Γυναικείων Μελετών και Ερευνών «Διοτίμα» με τη χρηματοδότηση της Save the Children – Σουηδίας στο πλαίσιο του διεθνούς προγράμματος «Girls on the move», που καταγράφει... more
Η έρευνα «Girls on the move in Greece» πραγματοποιήθηκε από το Κέντρο Γυναικείων Μελετών και Ερευνών «Διοτίμα» με τη χρηματοδότηση της Save the Children – Σουηδίας στο πλαίσιο του διεθνούς προγράμματος «Girls on the move», που καταγράφει τις εμπειρίες μετανάστευσης ασυνόδευτων και συνοδευόμενων κοριτσιών στα Βαλκάνια, στη Λατινική Αμερική και την Αφρική. Πρόκειται για την πρώτη έρευνα πεδίου που διεξάγεται για τις ανήλικες προσφύγισσες καλύπτοντας ένα σημαντικό κενό στις έρευνες περί μετανάστευσης στην Ελλάδα, στο βαθμό που τα διαθέσιμα στοιχεία ‒κυρίως ποσοτικά‒ εστιάζονται κατά κύριο λόγο στον πληθυσμό των αγοριών, παραγνωρίζοντας τις ιδιαίτερες ανάγκες και συνθήκες μετανάστευσης των κοριτσιών. Το υλικό συλλέχθηκε μέσα από επιτόπια έρευνα και ημιδομημένες συνεντεύξεις που διεξήχθησαν σε δομές φιλοξενίας με ασυνόδευτα κορίτσια, καθώς και με συνοδευόμενα κορίτσια και τους γονείς τους, αναφορικά με την εμπειρία του ταξιδιού τους στην Ελλάδα. Η έρευνα διεξήχθη μεταξύ Νοεμβρίου 2019- Ιανουαρίου 2020 και είχε τους παρακάτω στόχους:
- Να ενσωματώσει το φύλο ως αναλυτική κατηγορία στη μεταναστευτική / προσφυγική εμπειρία.
- Να εντοπίσει τους λόγους μετανάστευσης καθώς και τις συνθήκες διαβίωσης των κοριτσιών στην Ελλάδα.
- Να εντοπίσει τους κινδύνους που διατρέχουν κατά τη μετανάστευση και την παραμονή τους τα κορίτσια στην Ελλάδα, οι οποίοι άπτονται του φύλου και της σεξουαλικότητας.
- Να αναδείξει δομικά εμπόδια στην πρόσβασή τους σε κρατικές και μη κρατικές δομές και υπηρεσίες καθώς και την άσκηση βιοπολιτικής που αποκλείει τα κορίτσια από μια σειρά από κοινωνικά και πολιτικά δικαιώματα.
- Να προβεί σε προτάσεις πολιτικής, τόσο σε εθνικό όσο και σε ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο, που μπορούν να επιφέρουν μικρές αλλά σημαντικές βελτιώσεις στη ζωή τους.
Μέσα από τη διαθεματική προσέγγιση των παραπάνω ερευνητικών στόχων η παρούσα μελέτη προσπάθησε να αναδείξει τα σημεία δια-πλοκής μεταξύ ανηλικότητας, φύλου, σεξουαλικότητας και μετανάστευσης, αξιοποιώντας την πολυετή εμπλοκή του κέντρου «Διοτίμα» με το πεδίο του προσφυγικού σε καταυλισμούς και στον αστικό ιστό.
Απώτερος σκοπός ήταν μια κριτική ματιά που θα ισορροπεί περίτεχνα μεταξύ του λόγου των ΜΚΟ και ενός ανθρωπολογικού / φεμινιστικού λόγου που αναστοχάζεται τις συνθήκες παραγωγής και αναπαραγωγής της προσφυγικής εμπειρίας, που προσπαθεί να αναδείξει τους μηχανισμούς «ετεροποίησής» τους και που προβληματοποιεί συνολικά τους όρους συγκρότησης του προσφυγικού υποκειμένου.
Τα κείμενα που ακολουθούν είναι οι εισηγήσεις των δύο ερευνητριών ‒Ντιάνας Μάνεση και Μαρίας Λιάπη‒ και της επίκουρης καθηγήτριας Ειρήνης Αβραμοπούλου, που παρουσιάστηκαν στην εκδήλωση «Κορίτσια σε κίνηση: Πολύ μικρές για να γνωρίζουν, πολύ μεγάλες για να περιμένουν». Η εκδήλωση έλαβε χώρα διαδικτυακά τον Φεβρουάριο του 2021.
- Να ενσωματώσει το φύλο ως αναλυτική κατηγορία στη μεταναστευτική / προσφυγική εμπειρία.
- Να εντοπίσει τους λόγους μετανάστευσης καθώς και τις συνθήκες διαβίωσης των κοριτσιών στην Ελλάδα.
- Να εντοπίσει τους κινδύνους που διατρέχουν κατά τη μετανάστευση και την παραμονή τους τα κορίτσια στην Ελλάδα, οι οποίοι άπτονται του φύλου και της σεξουαλικότητας.
- Να αναδείξει δομικά εμπόδια στην πρόσβασή τους σε κρατικές και μη κρατικές δομές και υπηρεσίες καθώς και την άσκηση βιοπολιτικής που αποκλείει τα κορίτσια από μια σειρά από κοινωνικά και πολιτικά δικαιώματα.
- Να προβεί σε προτάσεις πολιτικής, τόσο σε εθνικό όσο και σε ευρωπαϊκό επίπεδο, που μπορούν να επιφέρουν μικρές αλλά σημαντικές βελτιώσεις στη ζωή τους.
Μέσα από τη διαθεματική προσέγγιση των παραπάνω ερευνητικών στόχων η παρούσα μελέτη προσπάθησε να αναδείξει τα σημεία δια-πλοκής μεταξύ ανηλικότητας, φύλου, σεξουαλικότητας και μετανάστευσης, αξιοποιώντας την πολυετή εμπλοκή του κέντρου «Διοτίμα» με το πεδίο του προσφυγικού σε καταυλισμούς και στον αστικό ιστό.
Απώτερος σκοπός ήταν μια κριτική ματιά που θα ισορροπεί περίτεχνα μεταξύ του λόγου των ΜΚΟ και ενός ανθρωπολογικού / φεμινιστικού λόγου που αναστοχάζεται τις συνθήκες παραγωγής και αναπαραγωγής της προσφυγικής εμπειρίας, που προσπαθεί να αναδείξει τους μηχανισμούς «ετεροποίησής» τους και που προβληματοποιεί συνολικά τους όρους συγκρότησης του προσφυγικού υποκειμένου.
Τα κείμενα που ακολουθούν είναι οι εισηγήσεις των δύο ερευνητριών ‒Ντιάνας Μάνεση και Μαρίας Λιάπη‒ και της επίκουρης καθηγήτριας Ειρήνης Αβραμοπούλου, που παρουσιάστηκαν στην εκδήλωση «Κορίτσια σε κίνηση: Πολύ μικρές για να γνωρίζουν, πολύ μεγάλες για να περιμένουν». Η εκδήλωση έλαβε χώρα διαδικτυακά τον Φεβρουάριο του 2021.
Research Interests:
Debates and discourses about children on the move do not occur in a vacuum. They are shaped by social and political contexts, and create dominant frameworks about children, about gender and about migration. There are plenty of studies... more
Debates and discourses about children on the move do not occur in a vacuum. They are shaped by social and political contexts, and create dominant frameworks about children, about gender and about migration. There are plenty of studies about unaccompanied boys on the move in Greece, yet girls have received minimal attention, consisting someone could say the invisible category of the refugee population. Though this lack of attention can be easily attributed to the low number of unaccompanied and/or separated girls on the move, it also reflects a tendency to reproduce the state of invisibility to which girls and women are continually subjected by hetero-patriarchy. The right to appear is deeply political in that certain subjects are considered worthy to appear and others are rendered less important and thus, we will have to search for scattered traces of their existence in literature, academic studies, journal articles, field researches. This is the case with girls on the move, “the weirdos” of the refugee population, as Hesther said, who have not received much attention until now. This study comes to cover an important gap in the existing literature on migration and refugee studies in Greece. By focusing on girls’ stories of travelling to Greece, we strive to “make space” for them by letting their stories “take place.” Instead of “speaking for them” we chose to bring their stories at the forefront with the aim to offer a better understanding of their lived realities. Drawing from our primary research with girls followed by a review of the existing literature we strive to provide a critical reflection on “girls on the move” and at the same time offer a set of recommendations that will strengthen the work with girls in the Regional “Children on the Move” program.
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Εισαγωγική ομιλία στο 1ο Λεσβιακό* Φεμινιστικό Φεστιβάλ, Πάνελ: Λεσβίες με πρόσωπο και σώμα: Εικόνες και βιώματα από τη λεσβιακή ιστορία της Ελλάδας Η λεσβιακή ιστορία υποθάλπει τη γραμμικότητα του οικουμενικού χρόνου, του χρόνου της... more
Εισαγωγική ομιλία στο 1ο Λεσβιακό* Φεμινιστικό Φεστιβάλ,
Πάνελ: Λεσβίες με πρόσωπο και σώμα: Εικόνες και βιώματα από τη λεσβιακή ιστορία της Ελλάδας
Η λεσβιακή ιστορία υποθάλπει τη γραμμικότητα του οικουμενικού χρόνου, του χρόνου της ετεροκανονικής ιστορίας. Η λεσβιακή ιστορία μπορεί να ανιχνευτεί μέσα από θραύσματα στον χώρο και τον χρόνο. Σε αυτή τη συνάντηση θα φτιάξουμε ένα παζλ θραυσματικής λεσβιακής ιστορίας με υλικά τις αφηγήσεις και εικόνες γυναικών από το «μακρινό» παρελθόν μέχρι το «κοντινό» παρόν.
Πάνελ: Λεσβίες με πρόσωπο και σώμα: Εικόνες και βιώματα από τη λεσβιακή ιστορία της Ελλάδας
Η λεσβιακή ιστορία υποθάλπει τη γραμμικότητα του οικουμενικού χρόνου, του χρόνου της ετεροκανονικής ιστορίας. Η λεσβιακή ιστορία μπορεί να ανιχνευτεί μέσα από θραύσματα στον χώρο και τον χρόνο. Σε αυτή τη συνάντηση θα φτιάξουμε ένα παζλ θραυσματικής λεσβιακής ιστορίας με υλικά τις αφηγήσεις και εικόνες γυναικών από το «μακρινό» παρελθόν μέχρι το «κοντινό» παρόν.
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Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak gave the 6th Annual Lecture in memory of Nicos Poulantzas, titled: “Europe and the Bull Market”
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Influenced mostly by Sedwigck’s approach on queer as a peculiar literary figure, a trope that can have a disruptive effect on discourse, but also by early French feminist writers like Lucy Irigaray and Helene Cixous who supported an... more
Influenced mostly by Sedwigck’s approach on queer as a peculiar literary figure, a trope that can have a disruptive effect on discourse, but also by early French feminist writers like Lucy Irigaray and Helene Cixous who supported an ecriture feminine, I tried to develop a form of political lyricism, working on the edge of theoretical discourse, personal diary and political manifesto, thus suggesting that there is no distinction between personal/political, universal/particular and at the end make it impossible to disconnect what is said by the way it is said while posing a challenge to the opposition between fiction and reality and intentionally exercising weak theory The following text might be considered a personal balancing between academic and literary genres in which queer feminism as it was experienced throughout my fieldwork emerges.