Activities

Joint Seminars of the Research Teams

First Seminar, 23-24 November 2012, Rethymnon, Crete

The first Joint Seminar was the launch meeting of the project. First of all, we identified the concept of 'public sociality' as the project's key analytical category. We also determined the main research axis of each Research Team (hereafter RT), namely 'youth', 'civil society', and 'space' and 'memory'.

We then reviewed the two databases to be developed in the framework of the project: the bibliographical database and the voluntary associations database. A first, collective attempt was made to determine the keywords of the bibliographical database and improve the logic and method of data correction and input. Lastly, preliminary suggestions for the construction of a sample for the voluntary associations database were aired, which would be further elaborated in the next meeting..

Second Seminar, 13 April 2013, Mytilene, Lesvos

After a six-month period of research, all Research Team (RT) members met again in a second Joint Seminar to discuss the progress of their individual case-studies and trace affinities between them as well as between the three RTs.

Furthermore, the progress made with the bibliographical database was presented. Finally, we defined the fields and discussed the data classification system of the voluntary associations database.

Third Seminar, 29-30 November 2013, Athens

In our third Joint Seminar, we drew upon our ongoing archival work and attempted to classify the voluntary associations under investigation along the two principal research axes: 'sociality' and 'civil society'. Individual presentations examined the cultural schemata through which each association formulates its objectives and which inform both its officially stated actions and its unofficial practices, its demands, as well as its relations with other associations and with the state. We also discussed the the press representation of associational activity, which is the specific focus of RT 2.

Finally, we considered the progress of the voluntary associations database, currently under construction, and reviewed the project's webpage, a preliminary version of which is now available online.

Fourth seminar, 6-7 June 2014, Rethymno

In the fourth joint seminar we focused on the manifold and fluid relationships between voluntary associations and the state. Individual presentations and the discussion that followed examined the various forms of these relationships, ranging from conflict to collaboration, and how they changed over time. A number of papers highlighted how often the activities of the associations replaced state services. The role of members who were state officials and professionals in forging links between the associations and the state was also stressed.

We also reviewed the ongoing work on the voluntary associations database, and made suggestions for its improvement.

Fifth Research Seminar, 5-6 December 2014, Mytilene

In the last seminar of the research programme participants presented the progress of individual case studies. The main goal of the meeting was to elaborate further the links between individual case studies and the wider research project, in line with relevant international scientific debates. The discussion moved along two lines. Firstly, we explored the affinities between different case studies, crossing the separate research groups, which have already been identified during the previous joint seminars. Secondly, individual case studies were placed within relevant international discussions, in order to identify the original contribution of the programme especially in respect to the notion of public sociability.

The meeting concluded with the discussion of deliverables, of technical aspects of databases as well as of organizational issues concerning the international conference, which will take place in May 2015 in Rethymno.

Sixth Seminar, April 4, 2015, Athens

During the sixth and last common seminar of the research teams discussions focused on the two databases, the bibliographical and the database for voluntary associations, and on ways that would enhance their coherence and accessibility. The final integration of the data bases to the Thalis site was also discussed.

Research Teams' Individual Meetings

Research Team One (University of Crete):

18 September 2013

Research Team Two (National and Kapodistrian University of Athens):

12 June 2013

16 October 2013

23 October 2013

20 November 2013

Research Team Three (University of the Aegean):

5 March 2014

Conference Participation (presentation of project-related individual research)

Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “The many faces of Zionism. Zionist culture, Jewish identity, and Hellenization in inter-war Salonica,” Modern Greek Studies Association Conference, Bloomington, Indiana, 14-16 November 2013.

Efi Avdela, “Master of Himself and Useful to Society: Reforming Juveniles in Post-war Greece", European Social Science History Conference, Vienna, 22-26 April 2014.

Pothiti Hantzaroula, “Memory as a Form of Public Sociality of Jewish Survivors in Greece: Gender, Ethnicity and Class in the Construction of Survivors’ Identity after the Shoah", European Social Science History Conference, Vienna, 23-26 April 2014.

Dimitra Lampropoulou, “From day work to night school: Laboring youth and social change in post-war Greece", 10ο European Social Science History Conference, Vienna, 23-26 April 2014.

Haris Exertzoglou, “Organizing the memory of the ‘lost Homelands.’ The Asia Minor memory culture and forms of refugee sociality in Greece during the interwar period", Uluslararasi Mudabele Sympozyomu [Symposium for the Population Exchange],  Ege Universitesi,  Smyrna, 8-9 May 2014.

Despo Kritsotaki,“Between the private and the public: The ‘mixed economy’ of mental health care in Greece, 1950s-1980s,” paper presented at the Society for the Social History of Medicine Conference 2014: “Disease, Health, and the State,” St Anne’s College, Oxford, 10-12 July 2014.

Katerina Loukidou, “New examples of collective action in Greece: challenging the traditional patterns of civil society-state relationship,” 11th ISTR International Conference: “Civil Society and the Citizen,” Muenster, 22-25 July 2014.

Katerina Rozakou, “Solidarity and the gift taboo: Volunteers approaching refugees in Greece,” ASA (Association of Social Anthropologists of the UK the Commonwealth) Conference: “Anthropology and Enlightenment,” Edinburgh, 19-22 June 2014.

Maria Christina Chatziioannou - Flora Tsilaga, “Educating shop assistants in Athens in the first half of the 20th century (c. 1903-1950): The role of war(s) in the formation of a growing professional group,”International Standing Conference for the History of Education, “Education, War and Peace,” Institute of Education, University of London, 23-26 July 2014.

Vangelis Kechriotis, “Clerical visions of morality and order among the Greek-Orthodox in Smyrna at the end of the 19th century”, 21st Symposium of the Comite International des Etudes pre-Ottomanes et Ottomanes, Budapest,7-11 October 2014.

Yiannis Karayiannis - Katerina Loukidou, “The path to democracy:civil society and politics in Greece,1974-1977”, 11th ISTR International Conference “Civil Society and the Citizen”, Munster, 22-25 July 2014.

Δημήτρης Σωτηρόπουλος - Κατερίνα Λουκίδου, «Ανασυγκρότηση ή ετεροκαθορισμός; Η ‘κοινωνία πολιτών’ και η σχέση της με το κράτος κατά τα πρώτα χρόνια της Μεταπολίτευσης: μελέτες περίπτωσης», Conference of the Greek Society of Political Science, University of Athens, December 2014.

Papers presented at the International Conference, “Forms of Public Sociality: Collective Action, Collective Subjectivities and the State in the Twentieth Century,” 8-9May 2015, Rethymno:

Efi Avdela, “Forms of Public Sociality in 20th-Century Urban Greece: The Project, the Premises and Provisional Findings”

Christos Lyrintzis, “Civil society and Sociality: An Alternative Approach”

Katerina Rozakou, “Sociality and Transformations of the Gift: Voluntary Work with Refugees at the Turn of the Century”

Paris Papamichos Chronakis, “‘Youth in Maccabi’. Negotiating Greek Jewishness in Zionist Youth Male Associations, 1922-1940”

Katerina Loukidou – Dimitris Sotiropoulos, “Exploring Greek Civil Society after Transition to Democracy: Two Case Studies”

Vassiliki Theodorou, “Changing Patterns of Connectedness in the Welfare Institutions for Mothers and Children in the Early Twentieth Century in Greece”

Despo Kritsotaki, “Associations for the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Postwar Greece (1950-1980)”

Haris Exertzoglou, “Memory, Folklore and Forms of Refugee Sociality in Interwar Greece”
Dimitra Lampropoulou, “‘Student, Labourer and Young’: Youth Action and Remembrance of Youth in Postwar Greece”

Oral testimonies

During the research project, researchers working on different case studies gathered thirty-four (34) oral testimonies with the aim to investigate the multiple meanings that actors give to their participation in these specific collectivities and the forms of action that they undertook as members.

More specifically:
Within the case study "Associations and institutions for the mental health of children and youths in post-war Greece (1950-1980)", Despo Kritsotaki, member of RT1, conducted seven (7) interviews with members of two associations for the mental health of children and youths, the Greek Society of Mental Hygiene and Neuropsychiatry of the Child and the PanHellenic Union of Parents and Guardians of Maladjusted Children.

As part of the case study "The collective action of the nightschool pupils in the 1960s: the Working Pupils' Association of High Schools", Dimitra Lampropoulou, member of RG1, conducted seven (7) interviews. All of the interviewees, four (4) men and three (3) women, had attended evening high schools in Athens in the 1950s and 1960s. The main thematic points of the interviews concern the living conditions of the working class and, more generally, poor urban kids in the first post-war decades; children's and youths' employment and evening schooling; the collective action through and participation in the Association; as well as individual and family strategies for improving life in post-war Greece.

For the purposes of the case study "The commercial world of 1900-1950. Collective representation, apprenticeship and education," Maria Christina Chatziioannou and Flora Tsilaga conducted two (2) interviews with graduates of the Night School for Athens Shop Assistants. The interviewees give information about attendance in Commercial Schools (time table, curriculum), the social and economic origins of the students and, to a certain extent, their subsequent professional careers.

In the framework of the case-study "Aspects of sociality of the Jews in Greece in the post-war period: identities after the catastrophe", Pothiti Hantzaroula, member of Research Group 3, collected fourteen (14) interviews with Holocaust survivors who were children during the German Occupation and participated in the activities organized by Jewish institutions. The interviews investigate the formation of post-war Jewish identities, focusing on childhood memory and on the ways in which children perceived the activities aimed at them. These activities revolved around issues of education, recreation and sociality.

Within the case study "Spatial dimensions of public sociality: the Kifissia area in the decades 1950-1970", Yiannis Yiannitsiotis, member of RT3, conducted four (4) interviews with members of neighbourhood-beautification associations of Kifisia. The interviews refer to the beautification association Anagennisi Ano Kifisias, to the neighbourhoods of Kifisia, the urban infrastructure of the area, the experience of space and the ways in which residents perceived and continue to perceive its transformations; also to the Pyrna association and the voluntary assistance provided to those who were considered 'poor.'

The interviews are accessible to researchers after communication with the project coordinator Professor Efi Avdela (avdela@uoc.gr).