ORAL HISTORY in GREECE
18 February 2013
GREECE
Riki Van Boeschoten, Associate Professor of Oral History and Social Anthropology at the University of Thessaly, Greece reports on three current oral history projects in Greece that she is supervising.
HANIA ORAL HISTORY CENTRE
‘The Hania Oral History Centre was set up in 2009 in the town of Hania, Crete, with the cooperation of the local government, the University of Salonica and an enthusiastic team of twenty volunteers.
‘The ultimate aim of the project is to create a museum of oral history which will also function as a research centre and oral history archive. The first set of oral histories was presented in December 2010 to the town’s citizens where people could watch and listen to all the interviews. The positive response of the town’s citizens was overwhelming and many visitors volunteered their own life stories. Unfortunately, despite this enthusiasm, the museum project, in spite of the availability of a suitable building, has been blocked for the moment due to a lack of further funding.’
FIGHTING AGAINST XENOPHOBIA THROUGH ORAL HISTORY
‘In 2011 a similar oral history project, based entirely on the efforts of thirty volunteers, was set up in Kypseli, a central neighbourhood of Athens. Until the 1950s this was an area of elite and middle class Athenians; today it has an extremely mixed population with the highest percentage of immigrants (twenty-two per cent) in Greece. The area is hard hit by the economic crisis and has experienced many inter-ethnic and racial conflicts, including extremely violent attacks against dark-skinned migrants.
‘In an attempt to calm the conflicts a group of active citizens took the initiative of collecting life stories of both migrants and Greek inhabitants and bringing to the fore their shared hopes and anxieties, as well as tensions. The ultimate aim is to make the material available to local citizens through electronic exhibitions and educational programs in local schools.’
DESIGNING THE CITY MUSEUM OF VOLOS
‘A third research project is due to start in 2012 in the town of Volos, Thessaly. This is a large three-year project, funded by the European Union, set up by historians, anthropologists and architects of the Universities of Thessaly and Salonica. The aim of this project is to use oral history to study the contemporary history of the town, to create an archive of oral histories and to develop high-tech interactive applications to be displayed in the future City Museum.
‘The University of Thessaly is planning a large oral history conference in May 2012 bringing together all these groups, as well as individual scholars who have contributed to the field since the 1980s. It seems the time is ripe to create a Greek oral history association.’
• For further information on any of the above three projects please contact: Riki Van Boeschoten rvboes@gmail.com
Source: ORAL HISTORY, spring 2012, p. 29
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