The region of Evros in a changing Greece

Evros is a border region, situated in the northernmost and easternmost part of Greece. It is the only mainland region of Greece bordering Turkey. In addition, it is part of the wider region of Thrace, where lives a minority of approximately 100,000 Muslim inhabitants, a majority of whom define themselves as ethnic Turks. However, Evros does not include a significant number of Muslims and is generally considered an ethnically homogeneous area.

Geographic location and demographic particularity are two conditions of crucial importance for understanding local modes of thinking and acting. A wide range of social activities in Thrace and Evros, from politics to economic development, used to reflect these conditions. Many Evros inhabitants used the narrative of ‘border keepers of the Nation’ and of ‘border keepers of Europe’, as a way of dealing with the material and symbolic inequality in the context of the Greek State and the European periphery. Public discourse was often adjusted to issues of foreign policy, for Turkey was at times regarded as a direct threat to the region. For many years, Evros was perceived as an isolated, highly militarised and in many cases State-dependent region.

However, in the 1990s, the political changes in Eastern Europe gave rise to new expectations of economic development. Furthermore, beginning from the mid-1990s, a series of new national policies were enacted by the then dominant modernising faction of PA.SO.K., the Greek social-democrat party. Some of these new policies were market-oriented reforms, adjustment to liberal standards and Greek-Turkish rapprochement.Reference Featherstone¹ One must keep in mind that these new policies were directly related to the idea of Europe and its most obvious embodiment, the European Union. In their own words, the then leaders of the Greek government constantly pledged allegiance to the vision of modernity, development, and Europe, which functioned as quasi-synonymous terms.Reference Simitis² At the same time, the European idea resonated with neo-liberal discourses and policies, in which, as Cris Shore notes, the political was subordinate to the autonomised economic ‘rationality’ and ‘neutrality’.Reference Shore³

The use of Europe as a justification for new policies was performed intensively in Greece. The Europeanisation and modernisation discourse reflected the hegemonic representations of Europe as a rational, superior social model and as a ‘foreign benefactor’, especially in State and elite discourse.Reference Herzfeld⁴ Therefore, the European Union met the old aspirations of peripheral parts of Europe to declare their European essence.Reference Mitchell⁵

Beginning from the late 1980s, European policies, in the form of programmes and various funding, started having a growing impact in Greece and Evros.Reference Andrikopoulou⁶ All throughout the 1990s, these new funds created new expectations, strategies and interests. One could say that European policies introduced a new context for the accumulation and reproduction of material and symbolic capital in the local public sphere. In many ways, public success or failure stemmed from one's relation to that kind of funds and policies.Reference Green⁷ Politicians of all sorts and levels competed in acquiring funds and being recognised as having done so. Local press, think-tanks, economic institutions, all echoed these new conditions. The knowledge and the experience on such issues were referred to by some of my informants as ‘euroknowledge’ and had become a sort of new technocratic cognitive capital.

The Cultural Union of Evros

In explaining the impact of Europe on local culture, I choose to focus on one specific example. This is the Cultural Union of Evros.⁸ This Union was founded in 1992 by members of pre-existing urban middle-class associations, in the context of national mobilisation and fear of minority upheaval all over the Balkans. In fact, its creation was directly proposed and financially encouraged by government officials and politicians. The activities of the newly founded Union consisted of disseminating cultural and folklore issues, such as the Greekness of Thrace, and reminding the local population of patriotism and national awareness.

The example of the Cultural Union of Evros reflected the longstanding attachment of most cultural associations to the Greek national movement. ‘Culture’ in Greece had been historically constructed as a distinct field of activities and interest, in the tradition of nationalist romanticism. For many years, culture had functioned as a metonymy for issues of national identity, national pride and national activism. More specifically, in Thrace and Evros, cultural associations seemed to embody nationalism as a ‘local’ phenomenon in the most direct manner.Reference Tsibiridou⁹ Many associations very often endorsed a discourse of competitive nationalism, directed against Turkey, the Muslim minority, and to a lesser extent, Bulgaria. This discourse and actions were more or less aligned with national State policies, as for example in the early 1990s, when the Greek State and Greek Church encouraged mass demonstrations on the issue of Macedonia.

Furthermore, local cultural associations could be interpreted as a part of the local economy of symbolic goods, to use Pierre Bourdieu's term.Reference Bourdieu¹⁰ According to Bourdieu, the modern division between the world of economy and the world of symbolic production was related to the autonomisation of economy and the dissociation between ‘interests’ and ‘passions’.Reference Bourdieu¹¹ Starting from the late 19th century, the cultural field in Greece was constructed as a field of non-economic and disinterested activities, pertaining to the transformation of various forms of capital, such as money, acquaintances and education, into symbolic capital and recognition.Reference Gintidis¹²

Agents that took and take part in cultural activities understood their action in terms of altruism and non-profit. Culture as a world of intellectual and disinterested action was, I think, inscribed in the local habitus. In addition to that, many of the most prominent founders of this Union were in fact concerned teachers, retired civil servants, and professionally inactive individuals, especially women. This meant that most of the Union founders held an ambiguous relation to the world of the profit economy and the market. Besides their different class, spatial or political background, or their different interests, such as music, dance and history, most cultural associations seemed to share these common ways of understanding and enacting culture. Subsequently, the relation of culture to the representations of non-profit had led for many years to the reproduction of culture as a field of patriotic and disinterested action.

The classification of culture as a field of non-profit did not mean that these actions did not have a specific material context. On the contrary, the materiality of cultural action, denied as it may be, was an everlasting trait of its reality, something of which one was regularly reminded by the dependence of cultural associations on the State or other benefactors, as well as by symbolic conflicts and accusations of ‘interested’ strategies. However, the precept of economic disinterest and negation – although partial and contradictory, as are the precepts of the public sphere – was a generalised ‘rule’ that defined converging and diverging strategies and practices, a rule in accordance with a specific division of fields of social action and the orientation of political power. As will be shown, advanced liberal policies in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries were reminders of the ever-present materiality of cultural action as well as of its dependence on the national and local political power.

European programmes and new cultural actions

Over time, the Cultural Union of Evros underwent changes. Starting from the mid-1990s, many rural associations became members. Younger participants got involved, thus bringing new ideas and practices. The Union participated in its first European programmes. This participation was mediated by local government institutions, such as the Prefecture of Evros. The Prefecture began informing the Union about European programmes on culture, sending copies of EU declarations and memos referring to specific programmes. In any case, cultural associations had always been materially and symbolically dependent on the local and national political field. These new practices reflected first of all the changes in the political field, where European policies had a growing impact since the 1990s. Dominant practices were subsequently imported to the cultural field. For example, while in earlier times direct donations from politicians and institutions were a usual way of helping out the associations, beginning from the mid-1990s, it was made clear to the associations that EU-grants, projects and programmes were the new way through which they could fund their activities and negotiate their relation to local politicians.

Moreover, terms such as ‘European programme’, ‘European money’ and all the subsequent jargon (‘good practices’, ‘competitiveness’, ‘absorption’, ‘accountability’) had become a common ground in Evros and Greece. They were a sort of ‘mobilising metaphor’, to the extent that they exceeded the confines of the purely political world.Reference Shore and Wright¹³

Inside the Union, some of the new members gradually acquired recognition and notoriety in relation to these new conditions. Such was the case of a self-defined cultural manager/entrepreneur, who was an acknowledged ‘technocrat’. He combined various activities, among which figured consulting politicians, cross-border networks and developmental companies. When speaking to me, he said that he was no longer a ‘socialist’ or ‘statist’, and in fact defined himself as 100% ‘liberal’ and ‘pro-European’. According to him, the European Union was the most obvious embodiment of the liberal rationale, to which the somehow backward and unstable Greek society needed to adjust. This cultural entrepreneur became the main broker of European policies inside the Union, organising conventions on the issues of cultural entrepreneurship, modernity, and so on.

Another example was that of an ambitious representative of a women's association. Having started from a rural background, she gradually became involved in various women's cooperatives and women's associations, and at the time of my fieldwork was the president of the Union. She was also interested in pursuing a political career. A large part of the symbolic capital she relied upon was acquired through the various (mostly European) programmes in which she had participated. As she said, she had realised over the years that ‘times had changed’ from when she had first joined the Union in the context of national mobilisation.

The action of such social agents and networks largely consisted of importing ideas, policies and programmes related to the European Union. Their relatively successful strategies were due to the fact that they had been able to identify with dominant and generalised norms of social success, such as European money, European programmes and the Europeanisation discourse.

Therefore, the Union participated in various European programmes. Their first experience was an INTERREG-funded cross-border conference in 1998. They then obtained their own INTERREG cross-border programme in cooperation with the Prefecture of Evros in 1999. During my fieldwork, between 2006 and 2009, they were conducting an EQUAL programme, in cooperation with local municipalities and developmental companies. Moreover, through the actions of the above-mentioned members, the Union had also become a small shareholder in a successful developmental company that administered EU funds.

A great part of the European funds was directed towards the promotion of inter-state and cross-border cooperation. These European policies, such as INTERREG, also matched the political discourse of Greek-Turkish friendship and rapprochement that became dominant after 1998. Most cultural associations had long been attached to the ideals of nationalist romanticism and the essentialisation of cultural difference. However, from that point and then on, it became clear to cultural associations that their implication in European programmes also entailed their implication in cross-border policies. During my fieldwork, members of the Union were repeatedly informed on various public occasions by local government officials that they should look for European programmes, and mainly cross-border programmes, since these were more likely to be obtained. This was something new if not contrary to their long-standing aspirations and practices. Some of the members of the Union were more apt at undertaking such initiatives, others, such as the elder teachers, followed, and few resisted this abrupt change. However, all these diverging strategies stemmed from the common knowledge of the new configuration of power, among supporters as well as dissidents. Cross-border discourse and cooperation was a new social norm, to which many local businessmen and politicians had early on responded, at least in terms of official discourse. In this way, cultural associations were called upon to readapt their expectations and practices. This also meant re-shaping the Union's past and its initial goals.

Another important issue is that of the new perceptions of culture in the context of the ongoing marketisation of various spheres of social action. European programmes and their structure played an important part in the redefinition of the relation of the Union and its members to individual profit and the economic profitability of culture. Beginning from the first INTERREG programme, some specific members of the Union no longer worked exclusively on a voluntary basis, but were often reimbursed for their work. The Union also needed to reshape itself into a non-profit company. At the same time, various cultural experts were invited to speak in conferences or courses. Most of them predicated cultural entrepreneurship, using new terms such as productivity, management plan, financial success, cultural market and prices.

A young educated woman, who was on the board of the Union, described to me how she had perceived the lectures given by these experts, as well as the new reality in the cultural field. She was a supporter of change. According to her, associations needed to make a profit, in order to be eligible for these European programmes, in order to then obtain the European programmes, in order to make a profit, and so on. Cultural entrepreneurship and European programmes were perceived as communicating and interchangeable notions. She used an evolutionary discourse, saying that this is ‘the way they do it in Europe’ and emphasising that Europeans are way more ‘advanced’ in these matters. Greeks were late and needed to catch up. As she told me, in Europe everything was done on a pay roll, company style. The old ways of exchanging hospitality and favours were discordant to the new needs of producing and overtly selling any cultural product. However, she stated that the older generation could not easily perceive how a traditional dance or a song could be sold. This woman pointed out that younger members had adapted to these new conditions, while elders still reacted, insisting on the traditional aspect of cultural activities for free. My informant insisted that all these things, considered as gifts in the old days, now should be for sale.

To a great extent, ‘Civil society’ and ‘NGO’ became the terms that encompassed these new ideas. They were first used by experts and politicians. During a public consultancy between associations and government officials in 2006, it was clearly stated by authorities that cultural associations needed to model themselves as ‘NGOs’ and members of the ‘civil society’, in order to become competitive and functional. ‘Civil society’ was understood by many local agents as an imported and normative term that symbolised new realities and new obligations, as has also been noted by Steven Sampson in the case of Albania.Reference Sampson¹⁴

Refusing to change

On the other hand, European programmes became a negative point of reference for the opposition inside the Union. This opposition could be interpreted as a loose social network, whose rhetoric converged in the denunciation of personal profit making strategies as well as cross-border projects. All these were related to European programmes. In some cases, this opposition succeeded in morally condemning individual practices related to European programmes. Furthermore, European programmes and their entrepreneurial requirements had become associated with the notions of personal profit-making and the crossing of boundaries between public and private. Discourse against European programmes, cross-border cooperation and entrepreneurial models existed all along the course of action of the Union,Reference Herzfeld¹⁵ combining ideas of unethical and dirty money, such as in the case study of Katherine Verdery on Romania.Reference Verdery¹⁶

The public bearers of an old fashioned patriotic discourse seemed aware of their own particularity and perceived their marginalisation in terms of ‘moral superiority’. It is true that this discourse seemed to provide a certain amount of social recognition, especially in the context of local cultural associations. At the same time though, people who opposed European programmes were unable to provide a counterproposal that would be seen as ‘realistic’. A woman who opposed the Union's leadership confided to me in a rather disappointed tone that, when asked by other members of the Union on what she had to counter-propose, she simply had nothing to say.

During the period of time of my research, these strategies and representations constituted a dominated, subaltern discursive field, more or less aware of its own deficiencies and contradictions.

Such symbolic conflicts and strategies reflected the current material context of cultural action, meaning mostly European programmes. New ideas on Culture or Nationalism communicated with this new material reality and all the entailed prerequisites, as these had been set out and legitimised primarily by the State and its local representatives.

The dynamics of European policies

‘Europe’ and ‘European Union’ were two interchangeable terms, with the same latent perceptions of symbolic and material inequality. The policies of the European Union, and all the related discourses, meanings, and obligations corresponded to the older precepts of self-discipline, Europeanisation, and modernity. The generalisation of these processes meant the generalisation of the perceptions of dominance of the European model and precept, among supporters as well as dissidents.

European programmes represented an immediate and palpable objectification of wider policies. European money and its symbols, along with the action of social agents, constituted ‘agents of European consciousness’, since they embodied and communicated the idea of Europe and the European Union.Reference Shore¹⁷ The representations of Europe were in direct communication with the material aspects of Europe.¹⁸

European policies had a practical impact, for they redefined the context of action for social agents in the local public sphere. Moreover, the prerequisites for European funding had specific implications on the issues of nationalism and economy. In fact they were occurring in a neo-liberal era when boundaries between commerce and culture were being redrawn and the so-called economic rationality constantly grew as an expansive social norm.Reference Shore and Wright¹⁹ New practices and ideas, such as cultural entrepreneurship and cross-border practices, communicated with the vision of European economic liberalism, as an indispensable complement, and at the same time gained acceptance due to the fact that they were more or less perceived as ‘European’.

At the same time, according to Borneman and Fowler,Reference Borneman and Fowler²⁰ ‘Europeanisation’ should be interpreted as ‘a strategy of self-representation’ and a ‘device of power’, pertaining to the production and reproduction of multiple configurations of power, old and new. Therefore, European policies and changes in the local public sphere should not be understood as a linear process stemming from the European Union to Evros, but instead as a dynamic process involving the local perceptions of both the national and international conjuncture.Reference Tsibiridou²¹ European policies are an important condition in the shaping of the hegemonic context in Greece, although always in relation to the State's normative discourse and its local appropriations.

In this sense, my ethnographic material should be seen in its historical specificity and in the light of the coinciding national and European policies during this period of time, from the mid-1990s till the late 2000s.Reference Bourdieu²²

One has to take into account the various levels of power where new ideas and practices were processed and mediated. The Greek State and the national public sphere seem to be of crucial importance as to the local dissemination of new policies. This is especially true in the case of borderland cultural associations that were historically dependent on the national State and its representatives. As has been shown, European policies, in the form of programmes, funding or ideas, were locally mediated through political institutions and politicians, meaning the local vectors of the national State and the national public sphere. European programmes and practices communicated with the hegemony of the national State and the practical understanding of the State's policies, materiality and bureaucracy on behalf of local social agents. The materiality of European policies was incorporated into old and new relations of inequality and dominance, in accordance with the practical understanding of funding as a relation of power and obligation. Furthermore, concepts such as ‘civil society’, ‘cross-border cooperation’ and ‘entrepreneurship’ were understood as new ideas and classifications approved and legitimised by the State.

Therefore, I suggest that the alternating and conflicting strategies inside the local cultural field of Evros reflected the various responses of social agents to the changing context of action set by supralocal political power, both national and European.