The Nomads of Mykonos: Performing Liminalities in a 'Queer' Space

Pola Bousiou

Published by Berghahn Books 2008

The Nomads of Mykonos

Performing Liminalities in a 'Queer' Space

Pola Bousiou

Volume 29 in the series New Directions in Anthropology

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780857450685

Overview
Contents

About this book

This is the ethnography of the Mykoniots d’élection, a ‘gang’ of romantic adventurers who have been visiting the island of Mykonos for the last thirty-five years and have formed a community of dispersed friends. Their constant return to and insistence on working, acting and creating in a tourist space, offers them an extreme identity, which in turn is aesthetically marked by the transient cultural properties of Mykonos. Drawing semiotically from its ancient counterpart Delos, whose myth of emergence entails a spatial restlessness, contemporary Mykonos also acquires an idiosyncratic fluidity. In mythology Delos, the island of Apollo, was condemned by the gods to be an island in constant movement. Mykonos, as a signifier of a new form of ontological nomadism, semiotically shares such assumptions. The Nomads of Mykonos keep returning to a series of alternative affective groups largely in order to heal a split: between their desire for autonomy, rebellion and aloneness and their need to affectively belong to a collectivity. Mykonos for the Mykoniots d’élection is their permanent ‘stopover’; their regular comings and goings discursively project onto Mykonos’ space an allegorical (discordant) notion of ‘home’.

Author / Editor information

Pola Bousiou was born and educated in Thessaloniki, Greece, and later at the London School of Economics where she received her PhD in social anthropology. Subsequently she has turned to film-making; in her current research she is exploring the relationship between anthropology and film by deconstructing her auto-ethnographic text into an experimental film narrative.

Reviews

“…an enticing and vibrant ethnographic text, full of insightful comments which follow diverse strands of theoretical discussion…a genuine piece of postmodern performative ethnography.” • JRAI

“…a thought-provoking exploration of ethnography, social theory…a unique and provocative intervention into the “status quo” of ethnographic writing and explanation. The book refuses and transgresses coherencies and dichotomies in ways that ultimately reveal our own desire for ‘neatly’ organized and compartmentalized theory and ethnography, and I think this is precisely what Bousiou set out to do: to ask where, in theory, a world of nomadic tourists, hedonists, and ‘extreme individuals’ leaves us.” • H-Net Reviews

“This publication makes for fascinating reading. It has substantial value in developing theoretical understanding of tourist praxis and as a guide to deep engagement in field work in both disciplines.” • Tourism Geographies

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
CONTENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION Publicly Available Download PDF	x
INTRODUCTION Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
1 MYKONOS: THE BUILDING OF A LIMINAL SPACE-MYTH Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
2 NARRATIVES OF BELONGING: THE MYTH OF AN ‘INDIGENOUS’ OTHERNESS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	35
3 NARRATIVES OF THE SELF: AN ECCENTRIC MYTH OF OTHERNESS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	65
4 NARRATIVES OF PLACE: A SPATIAL MYTH OF OTHERNESS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
5 NARRATIVES OF DIFFERENCE: AN AESTHETIC MYTH OF OTHERNESS Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	175
CONCLUSION Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
EPILOGUE A BEACH FAREWELL Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	231
APPENDIX I THE PROBLEM OF AGENCY IN THE GREEK ETHNOGRAPHIC SUBJECT Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	249
APPENDIX II THE EMERGENCE OF THE SENSUAL POST-TOURIST: CONSUMING ‘CULTURES’, MULTISUBJECTIVE SELVES AND (TRANS)LOCAL SPACES Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
GLOSSARY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	271
BIBLIOGRAPHY Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	277
INDEX Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	293

Language: English
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 322
Keywords: Gender Studies and Sexuality; Travel and Tourism; Anthropology (General)

eBook

Published: April 1, 2008
ISBN: 9780857450685