Marginalization, according to Webster, is “the treatment of a person, group, or concept as insignificant or peripheral.” In the text, the recurrent marginalization of ethnic minorities in Greek are defined in terms of the binary relationship of “Hellenism” and “Greekness.”
Given Greek’s historical standing as “the cradle of Western civilization”(174), Hellenism alludes to the glorified and idealized aspects of ancient Greek history which use cultural lineage and national purity as a validation to relegate under-represented communities, racial minorities and/or immigrants. Conversely, Greekness pertains to an understanding of Greek identity that acknowledges the multiple population shifts and incorporates “the histories of ethnic minorities that are invisibilized in the dominant rhetoric.” (175)
I believe marginalization is a crucial word and concept related to our understanding of refugeehood and the immigrant experience in Greece, as it echoes the dichotomous relationship between Greece’s “fragmented” national identity today and historical “purity”. Overall, Natalie Zervou demonstrates the importance of recognizing that minorities and immigrants living on the fringes of Greek society, are in fact an integral part of its evolving national identity.
Zervou, Natalie. "Bodies of Silence and Resilience: Writing Marginality." Congress on Research in Dance Conference Proceedings, 9 Jan 2018. Accessed https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/congress-on-research-in-dance/article/bodies-of-silence-and-resilience-writing-marginality/321B66A9F1027010D75F0A07A6B5F404. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary Accessed 9 Jan 2018. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/disappear.
Hi Nandini,
A few writing comments first. In your first paragraph you write “in the text.” I know you do a works cited (which you should change to a link to our bibliography and not put the works cited in the body of the post) but when you are writing and directly referring to a text for which you are providing a critical analysis, you need to name the text to help the reader understand the reference. So here you should write, in Natalie Zervou’s article, “Bodies of Silence and Resilience: Writing Marginality,” and then go on from there.
As for the idea in this post, that the distinction between Hellenism and Greekness can offer an opportunity to narrate who makes up the Greek population differently – and offer an understanding of Greek society as made up of waves of immigrants with different affiliations who have been incorporated into Greek and whose experiences have changed that culture over time, that framework of history works against marginalization of newcomers and migrants — and instead tells how their experience is central to an ever evolving culture. The term marginalization is critical – because, as Zervou demonstrates, we can put together narrative framework in all sorts of expressive media that resist the marginalization in the framework of Hellenism. Great post!