Seeing like a Village: Contesting Hegemonic Modernity in Greece

Abstract

The village is a topos in the conventional, evolutionary account of modern Greek national emergence. Using the example of an eccentric Cretan village, Zoniana, I suggest that those villages that stand in opposition to the state-largely because they are considered remote and dangerous-are actually a potential source of insight into underlying structures of social interaction and future transformations of Greek society. The villagers' capacity for decoding the bureaucratic actions of the state, a capacity honed during long centuries of opposition to authority, also sheds light on the dilemmas associated with Greece's geopolitical situation, while their striking combination of agonistic social relations with institutional means of conciliation provides a model for understanding the current emergence of new forms of social solidarity in urban Greece.