From hostile backwater to natural wilderness: on the relocation of 'nature' in Epirus, Northwestern Greece
Year: 2005
Type: article
Abstract: This paper focuses on a familiar process underway in recent years in many parts of Europe and indeed much of the rest of the world: the attempt (usually policy-led) to redefine relatively remote and depopulated areas as sites of natural and/or cultural heritage, in order to enhance the viability of such regions. [1] Many studies have focused upon what this process means in cultural, political and/or environmental terms. [2] This paper concentrates instead on what such 're-branding' means in terms of the relative location and reputation of such remote regions: do peripheral places become more central as a result of being given a new gloss of cultural and/or natural heritage paint? Using ethnographic fieldwork carried out in Epirus, northwestern Greece, the paper argues that both past representations of Epirus as a 'hostile backwater' and more recent ones as 'natural wilderness' generate a similar relative location between Epirus and elsewhere: i.e. that it is peripheral in relation to an imagined centre of things. The implication is that while concepts of nature and culture have been on the move in recent years, the past hierarchies distinguishing more marginal (and more 'natural') places from more central (and more 'cultural') places have been reiterated.
Author: Sarah Green
Institution: University of Manchester
Language: English
Subfield: Cultural Studies
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
SDG: Life on land
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W1939555857