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

or technical issues of rubbish disposal. When people shift the responsibility for this on the
neighbours, “Albanians”, “locals”, local community, municipality or the nation-state, they at
the same time construct these boundaries. This process creates a kind of order, within which
people place their agency. Contradictions and conflicts, seen as both products and producers
of differentiations between “us” and “them”, are part of power relations, where each
individual tries to assert his understanding about the meaning of place and in such a way
determine the “where” of the village. This process results in formation of spatial hierarchy,
which significantly contributes in formation of individual’s identity. The latter is then either
located in the village or removed from it.
The chapter shows complexity and fragmentation of power relations between individuals on
the coast. In general we can discern two related perspectives: one on “micro” and another on
“macro” level. When the local emigrant Kiqos, for example, differentiates between him and
the “Albanians”, he creates the “order” on the “micro” level. He emphasizes individual and
partly local responsibility for dirtiness of the coast and the village. He forms his identity
through this process of differentiation between “Albanians” and horiani and places it on the
spatial map of the coast, asserting his right of ascribing the meaning to the village and the
coast. He declares himself to be a local, horianos, a concept akin to “Greekness” and opposite
to “Albanianess”. Simultaneously with the formation of his identity, he constructs the village
and the coast. By using toponyms, for which he claims are of a Greek origin, he locates the
village on the geopolitical map of nation-states. This is the “macro” level of his understanding
of space and place. His understanding of the latter is on the one hand generated through his
biography and on the other hand reproduced according to political, economical and
administrative “forces”, which shape the borders and the view of the world at large.
Considering the statements and stories told by elder generation of villagers (Chapter Three)
and younger generation of local emigrants and tourist facilities owners (Chapter Four), it
seems that the meanings of the village and its locatedness – or the “where” of the village – are
redefined through individual experiences and people’s perception of the state border between
Albania and Greece. Elderly people in this regard redefine the “whereness” according to
closure of the road and/or prohibition of travel over the border. In contrast, younger
generation redefines the “whereness” of the village according to the later times and the
reopening of the border.
217