Back to "eparhia": masculinity and citizenship in a landscape of multiple displacements

Abstract

The ethnography of northern Greece has already indicated since the 1990s the specificity of the minority condition in this region during the last century. In this article, the case of the Caucasian refugees of Pontokomi in Kozani is approached ethnographically. It highlights the condition of repeated refugeeism and persecution that characterize their stories from the end of the 19th century until today. From Pontus, Russia, Pontokomi to exile and the recent displacement due to the PPC (Public Power Corporation), the history of the Caucasians unfolds as a continuous story of refugeeism and displacement. Focusing on forming a ‘risky’ and ‘degenerate’ population in the region of Macedonia during the interwar period, I address how this conceptualization configured the relations of masculinities in the region until their transformation during Metapolitefsi. Following the life stories of my interlocutors, I trace the emergence of night cultures and sexual entertainment as fields of redefining provincial masculinities and a parallel process of reconstructing citizenship.