Participation of GAPRIA in the annual conference of the SKAE

The GAPRIA project participated with a paper presentation in the 2nd International Conference of the Association of Social Anthropologists Greece held between 24-26 May 2024 in Thessaloniki, Greece under the title ‘Anthropology and Ethnography in Precarious Times’. Georgina Christou presented a paper on youth antiauthoritarian movements in Cyprus and their associations with movements in Greece, analyzing simultaneously the political identity construction process in the Greek Cypriot community’s public education system and its effects on youth politics.

Please see below the title and abstract of her contribution:

Title: ‘Our only country, our childhood dreams’: Resistances in growing up Greek.

Worldwide events such as the financial crisis and responsive social movements, but also local events such as the opening of the checkpoints after 30 years of physical division between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, led to the formation of a visible antiauthoritarian youth community that has not existed in Cyprus before. This youth community, with roots in the extra-parliamentary Left and in the few anarchist groups in Cyprus, but also with connections with the antiauthoritarian space in Greece, constituted a population group that from the beginning resisted the ‘Greekness’ of Cypriots, as it is presented in hegemonic discourse. This presentation aims to highlight the ways teenagers with antiauthoritarian sensitivities resist the hegemonic narrative provided by (Greek) Cypriot education where Greekness is associated with ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’, but also, as it will be argued, with concepts such as ‘maturity/adulthood’. It will demonstrate how resistance to such hegemonic narratives is achieved through practices of becoming and remaining minor, as well as through claiming of political space and existence. On the other hand, the presentation will outline how the state in its attempt to manage this internal otherness, implements processes of denationalization that respond to contemporary global processes of managing populations.