Conclusion

Summary

My fieldwork in Greece in recent years has led me to study some of the logics of the mobilisation of the past in relation to the diversity or polyphony of memories in the country. Such mobilisations at present seem to be supported by processes such as the strengthening of transnational links enabled by the increase in mobilities and migration on the one hand, and their adaptation to a particular form of consensus concerning minority expression on the other. Over and above the prevailing situation at the heart of their nation-state, international political recognition effectively provides efficient support enabling local and minority expressions to be positioned within a set of norms henceforth seen as a priori legitimate. The permitted performance of these discourses of identification serves to strengthen their specular dimension for those who see themselves as part of these groups. The performance suggests (even obliges) a way of presenting – even thinking of – the self, of looking at the self as in a mirror; this appeared to me to apply particularly to the descendants of Rhodian Jews or to other groups encountered during my fieldwork. The last process, neverless, also undergoes a certain simplification, a normalisation of the expression of belonging based on codes suggested by some of its promoters. Such a movement occurs again at the expense of individual memories and their inevitable plurality, as evidenced by the disagreements between the various protagonists of these revitalisation projects over the best practices to adopt. No matter at which level it is planned, the institutionalisation of memory which these processes suggest goes through a stage of normalisation of space and practices, and the role of institutional actors does not appear to be of any importance in this latter trait.

And yet such a movement takes place on the ground with no obvious discrepancy with the development of nationalist discourses either in Greece or in neighbouring countries. This paradox inevitably brings to mind the remarks made by Ferdinand de Saussure on the evolution of languages, which would in effect be subject to two apparently opposing tendencies which he terms the ‘ force d’intercourse’, or pressure of communication (the gradual unification of particularities as the transfers and exchanges increase in number) and the ‘esprit de clocher’ – individualism or provincialism – (the strengthening of regional particularities as a reaction to standardisation).