This study explores the process of identity creation in the Caribbean archipelagic space by examining the last five centuries of Grenada’s layered history through detailing and analyzing the major... Show moreThis study explores the process of identity creation in the Caribbean archipelagic space by examining the last five centuries of Grenada’s layered history through detailing and analyzing the major human-environment interactions that have transformed its landscape, particularly following the invasion of Europeans since the 17th century and the establishment of plantation agriculture and slavery (utilizing enslaved Africans and their descendants), village settlements and subsistence agriculture, and much later tourism. It will analyze its landscape transformations by examining land use and settlement patterns of its human occupants from the Indigenous Kali’nago to its current inhabitants via the concept of creolization. Centuries of interactions between and among these various groups of people and the Grenadian environment have created a landscape best described as a palimpsest where layer upon layer of interactions intertwine, overwrite and blend with each other through time. Yet leaving glimpses or blurred pictures of impacts in various and discernable ways, thus creating a long-term biography of this islandscape. By examining the Grenadian palimpsest and analyzing the concept of landscape identity through historical representations and memory-traces embedded in the Creole cultural landscape this study explores the relationship between people and the landscape over time. Show less
This dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the... Show moreThis dissertation examines the continued, yet hitherto overlooked, engagement of the Greek community in Egypt from the period after the en masse departure of most of its members (1962), until the implementation of the infitāh policies in 1976 by Anwar Sadat. Beyond Departure: The Greeks in Egypt, 1962-1976 explores the Greeks’ multiple personal, local and institutional histories that make up the Greek presence in history after 1962. It reveales the diversity of Greek experiences based on geographical, socioeconomic and individual context. It analyzes the motivations and strategies they employed to respond to the economic and social changes in Egyptian society, such as the end of the Capitulations, WWI and WWII, the formation of the post-colonial state, and the 1961 Nationalization laws, among others, and the relations these events formed between Egyptian nationals and non nationals and the Egyptian state. It also explores how Greeks negotiated their presence, identity and feelings of belonging, in mind and practice, as a diaspora with a transnational agency. Show less
This dissertation examines how the Serbs as a nation deal with the past through the prism of the 1915 Serbian Army retreat across Montenegro and Albania in the wake of the invasion of Serbia in... Show moreThis dissertation examines how the Serbs as a nation deal with the past through the prism of the 1915 Serbian Army retreat across Montenegro and Albania in the wake of the invasion of Serbia in October 1915. We investigate the remembrance of this iconic event as a symptom of Serbian mythologized self-perception. The Retreat today is a canonised memory symbolising Serbian heroism and sacrifice. The First World War and the Retreat are experienced as specific and personal. Any attempted introduction of alternative views of the Serbian role in the First World War are rejected as hostile revisionism. The Serbian government has used the centenary commemorations to distract the Serbian public from the more recent unexamined past — Serbia’s role in the wars of the Yugoslav succession of the 1990s. This commemorative opportunism has been termed in the thesis as historical frame switching —framing current political events within arguably irrelevant historical contexts mostly in order to present an image of biased and unjust treatment of Serbs by the West. Further, politically loaded commemorations are analysed alongside grassroot events and ceremonies that memorialise the War and the Retreat. The latter are recognised as fictive kinships of remembrance, as previously characterised by Jay Winter. Show less
This book presents a mode by which to discuss and assess Jewish religious participation and religious group membership as a social phenomenon through the lens of social identity theory. It... Show moreThis book presents a mode by which to discuss and assess Jewish religious participation and religious group membership as a social phenomenon through the lens of social identity theory. It includes analyses and discussion of minority groups’ self-perception within broader national contexts, self-esteem as a result of religious group membership, and the dichotomy between religious in-group identity and active belief. If we are able to distinguish ‘belief’ from ‘belonging’ relative to institutional religions, we might better accommodate the needs and values of these groups. This book focuses on a Canadian group of secular Jews, combining quantitative and qualitative methods to illuminate how religious identity, connection and membership affect daily modern life. Show less
