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

the spatial differentiation of the coast. She places the foreign side of the coast (kseni meria),
populated with the owners who originate from other places of Albania, in opposition to the
local side (meria tou horiani), where she finds herself, Kosta and his cousin. Although the
cousin is held responsible for the trash (which is considered a “matter out of place” by
Douglas), he still belongs to the “local place” when compared to the people on the “foreign
side”. Identifications are therefore dynamic with shifting distinctions and defined spatially.
The meanings of a living space can be shifted too, in line with the alterations in identification.
A similar contextual dependence and relativity of spatial delineations can be seen in the
criticism of Flutura’s actions by Kiqos and his wife. Kiqos is disgusted by Flutura cleaning
Dimitris’ excrement in the proximity of his children. He relates her doing to the
irresponsibility of “other Albanians” who pollute the coast. Albanians are thus considered as
being responsible for all the dirt, for everything that is “out of place”. In such a way he
restates his own position of being “of the place”. Although he lives in Greece, he identifies
himself with the coast and the village from which his parents and relatives originate.
4.2.2. Manipulating the Citizenship
Similar features of identification and its spatial dependence can be observed in Lolo’s views
too. When he teases his wife Flutura about her Albanian citizenship he perceives the latter in
terms of the ideology of nation-states. His position of having a Greek passport and
permanently living in Albania reveals the hierarchy of citizenships, with Greek being superior
to Albanian. On the one hand Lolo acknowledges hegemonic discourse surrounding
“Alvanos” that is present in the media and the economic and political circles in Greece and
elsewhere (for negative attitude and stereotypical discourses in the media of Greece see Kretsi
[2002], de Rapper [2002], Mai and Schwandner-Sievers [2003]). On the other hand Lolo’s
irony and his own example of changing the citizenship after the fall of communism illustrate
his manipulation of the citizenship within the bureaucratic norms and constraints of
international politics.
His understanding could be interpreted through Herzfeld’s definition of social poetics, for
which he states that “norms are both perpetuated and reworked through the deformation of
social conventions in everyday interaction” (2005: 37). In the light of Herzfeld’s view, Lolo’s
irony shows how the concept of the citizenship, which is constructed through the state
ideology, is generated and managed by Lolo. Moreover, within the interplay of political,
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