Dr Dimitrios Theodossopoulos
BA (Hons), MSc (LSE), PhD (LSE & UCL)
Senior Lecturer in Social AnthropologyDepartment of Archaeology and Anthropology |
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Research Interests
- The anthropology of Panama; Embera culture and ethnography
- Nationalism, stereotypes and constructions of Otherness
- Greco-Turkish politics of friendship
- Environmental Anthropology
- Attitudes to animals and perceptions of the natural world
- Tourism, culture commodification, and authenticity
My latest research focuses on the politics of representation and indigeneity in Panama, and in particular among the Embera. I work with an Embera community that receives visitors on a regular basis and specialises in indigenous tourism. Its inhabitants enact with remarkable consistency and confidence a number of Embera cultural traditions, which they make available for audiences of tourists. I am interested in the social change that has resulted from the increased visibility of Embera identity, the pursuit of cultural authenticity, and the effects of an unprecedented rate of contact with the outside world. [see our web-page]
I am fascinated with the global dimensions of anti-globalization, its political repercussions for local communities, and the imagination of a worldwide community of peripheral actors discontented with the Western civilizational priorities. I have recently edited a new volume (United in Discontent, Berghahn) which examines how communities on the periphery of power are dissatisfied with globalization and Western versions of cosmopolitanism. As I argue in the introduction to this volume, globalization is paradoxically encouraging its own critique, by facilitating the circulation of the very ideas that make its denunciation possible.
I am also interested in the anthropology of nationalism and the politics of ethnic-identity making. My work in this field concentrates on perceptions of other ethnic groups, the use of ethnic stereotypes, and the meaningfulness of international politics as these are discussed at the local level. I have edited a volume about Greek views of the Turks (When Greeks think about Turks,Routledge, 2007), two edited collections on ethnic stereotypes in Southeast Europe, and I am currently editing a special issue of Social Analysis that sheds some light on how local actors discuss the Great Powers. My own ethnographic contributions to this project examine anti-Americanism in Greece and in Panama.
My earlier work was concerned with environmental politics and the sub-field of Environmental Anthropology. My first anthropological fieldwork and monograph (Troubles with Turtles, Berghahn, 2003) examined a dispute between a community of farmers and urban groups of environmentalists. Despite my previous involvement in ecological conservation, I have engaged in a sustained critique of environmentalism, inspired by the axiom that a thorough study of indigenous cultures is a fundamental step to understanding conflicts over the environment. I have also written about human-animal relationships, hunting, and the social dimensions of environmental conservation.
Publications
Books and journal special issues
n.d. (with Jonathan Skinner) (eds) Great expectations: imagination, anticipation, and enchantment in tourism. Oxford: Berghahn.
2009 (with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou) (eds) United in discontent: Local responses to cosmopolitanism and globalization. Oxford: Berghahn.
2007. (ed.) When Greeks think about Turks: the view from anthropology. London: Routledge. [read more about this book]
2006. (ed.) When Greeks think about Turks: the view from anthropology. Special issue of South European Society & Politics Vol. 11, No 1.
2004. (with Keith Brown) (eds) Stereotypes and Otherness in Southeast Europe. Special issue of History & Anthropology, Vol. 15, No. 1.
2003. Troubles with turtles: Cultural Understandings of the Environment on a Greek Island. Oxford: Berghahn. [read more]
2003. (ed.) Ethnic Stereotypes and their Ethnographic Alternatives in Southeast Europe. Special issue of the Journal of Mediterranean Studies, Vol. 13, No. 2. [contents]
2000. (with Allen Abramson) (eds) Land, Law and Environment: Mythical Land, Legal Boundaries. London: Pluto Press. [link]
Articles and chapters in books
n.d. Authentic solutions to inauthentic expectations: Embera engagements with indigenous tourism. In Great Expectations: Imagination, Anticipation, and Enchantment in Tourism (eds) J. Skinner & D. Theodossopoulos. Oxford: Berghahn.
2009. Tourism and indigenous culture as resources: Lessons from the Embera cultural tourism in Panama. In Tourism, Power and Culture: Anthropological Insights (eds) D.V.L. Macleod & J.G. Carrier, 115-133. Bristol: Channel View.
2009. Introduction: United in Discontent. In United in discontent: Local responses to cosmopolitanism and globalization (eds) D. Theodossopoulos & E. Kirtsoglou. Oxford: Berghahn.
2007. Encounters with authentic Embera culture in Panama. Journeys 8 (1-2), 93-115. [abstract]
2007. Introduction: The 'Turks' in the imagination of the 'Greeks'. In When the Greeks think about the Turks: the view from anthropology (ed.) D. Theodossopoulos, 1-32. London: Routledge.
2007. 'Politics of friendship, worldviews of mistrust: the Greek-Turkish rapprochement in local conversation. In When the Greeks think about the Turks: the view from anthropology (ed.) D. Theodossopoulos, 193-210. London: Routledge.
2006. Introduction: The 'Turks' and the Greek imagination. South European Society & Politics Vol. 11, No 1, 1-32. [abstract]
2005. 'Care, Order and Usefulness: The context of the human-animal relationship in a Greek island community'. In Animals in Person: cultural perspectives on human-animal intimacies (ed.) J. Knight, 15-35. Oxford: Berg.
2004. (with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou) "They are taking our culture away": tourism and culture commodification in the Black Carib community of Roatan. Critique of Anthropology 24(2), 135-157. [abstract]
2004. (with Keith Brown.) Others' Others: talking about stereotypes and constructions of Otherness in Southeast Europe. History & Anthropology 15(1), 3-14. [link]
2004. The Turks and their nation in the worldview of Greeks in Patras. History & Anthropology 15(1), 29-45. [abstract]
2004. 'Working in nature', 'caring for nature': diverse views of the environment in the context of an environmental dispute. In Confronting environments: local environmental understanding in a globalizing world (ed.) J. Carrier, 49-70. Walnut Creek: Altamira Press.
2003. (with Keith Brown) Rearranging solidarity: Conspiracy and the world order in Greek and Macedonian commentaries of Kosovo. Journal of Southern Europe and the Balkans 5(3), 315-335. [abstract]
2003. Degrading Others and honouring Ourselves: Ethnic stereotypes as categories and as explanations. Journal of Mediterranean Studies 13(2), 177-188. [proofs version]
2002. Environmental conservation and indigenous culture in a Greek island community: the dispute over the sea turtles. In Conservation and mobile indigenous peoples: displacement, forced settlement and sustainable development (eds) D. Chatty and M. Colchester, 244-260. Oxford: Berghahn.
2001. (with Elisabeth Kirtsoglou). Fading memories, flexible identities: the rhetoric about the Self and the Other in a community of 'Christian' refugees from Anatolia. The Journal of Mediterranean Studies 11(2), 395-415.
2000. (with Keith Brown). The performance of anxiety: Greek narratives of the war at Kosovo. Anthropology Today 16, (1): 3-8. [link]
2000. The land people work and the land the ecologists want: indigenous land valorisation in a rural Greek community threatened by conservation law. In Land, law and environment: mythical land, legal boundaries (eds) Allen Abramson and Dimitrios Theodossopoulos, 59-77. London: Pluto Press.
1999. The Pace of the Work and the Logic of the Harvest: Women, Labour and the Olive Harvest in a Greek Island Community. J. Roy. Anthrop. Instit. (N.S.) 5(4): 611-626.
1997. Turtles, farmers and 'ecologists: the cultural reason behind a community's resistance to environmental conservation. The Journal of Mediterranean Studies, 7(2): 250-67.