university of nova gorica graduate school contested spaces and ...

No, you are wrong! First comes Grammata then Voroskopo, Kondratsa, Jaliskari and
down there, further on lies Alevra.
When I asked them about the meanings of the names, they replied that their fathers used to
know this, while they forgot everything. Both Kiqos and Vangjelis were blaming the
communism for disappearance of social memory, because it indoctrinated many people and
taught them false things and ideology. While Kiqos and Vangjelis were discussing about the
toponyms, their wives began to pack the things as they were getting late to prepare lunch for
their in-laws and themselves. While they were collecting the towels, mattresses, toys and the
food, one of them left the rubbish on the beach, but the other one picked it up and put it into
the sack. She turned to me and said: “We always take care of our garbage, we like our
village”.
4.2.1. Identification and Belonging
According to Tilley (1994: 15) the meaning of place stems out of human experience. Places
can be experienced and defined at any number of spatial levels – from personal space to
community space, a regional one and so on (Tilley 1994: 17). Elderly people (born between
1926 and 1945, whose remembrances were presented in Chapter Three), who returned to the
village after years of living in other Albanian and/or Greece places, experience the coast
through memories about paths and movements of their ancestors. Different to them are the
younger generations (born after 1950, comprised of local emigrants, seasonal workers and
tourists) which experience the coast mainly as a touristy place which is either the source of
their financial income or the place where they spend their holidays. The village coast,
therefore, bears different meanings to them than to the elderly population. It has an economic
meaning for Ariadne and Kosta because it represents the source of their income. To Flutura
and Lolo it has a meaning of a domestic place, where they can spend their free time and
socialize. It bears a similar meaning for the local emigrants like Kiqos and Vangjelis and their
families, who annually return to the village coast. They experience the coastal place through
leisure and social activities. By naming its locations with Greek names they consider it as a
part of Greece. This shows that along with their movements people experience place through
their personal biographies, their management of sources (such as land), goals and aspirations.
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