Ethnographic Research in Northeastern Greece and Istanbul (Spring 2015)
In April 2015 Karen Barkey and Dimitris Papadopoulos traveled to Greece and Turkey and conducted fieldwork in Northeast Greece and Istanbul. They visited both rural (Kutuklu Baba turbe, Budali Hocha turbe) and urban (St. Demetrios and St. George in Istanbul, Haci Evrenos Imaret in Komotini) sites that are part of different communities or minorities. Their objective was to produce field-based evidence about sacred space and the practices of sharing it, mixing it, converting it or erasing it in the geographical and historical context of the Balkans and more specifically within a comparative Greek-Turkish perspective. In this sense this was project of comparing notes across boundaries: nation-state borders, languages, minorities, identities as well as through historical legacies, temporal and material layers. The team revisited some of the sites that were included in the 2013 season (St. George, St. Demetrios) to follow up on local stories and actors involved and trace any changes.
