Модернизиране на държавата, изграждане на нацията: антропологията и неспокойното развитие на социалните науки в съвременна Гърция
Modernizing the State, Building the Nation: Anthropology and the Uneasy Evolvement of Social Sciences in Modern Greece

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the institutional and conceptual history of anthropology in the wider context of the evolvement of social sciences in Greece. Anthropology is a discipline which has a relatively recent institutional presence in the Greek academia but a long and dynamic intellectual trajectory. Throughout our analysis we will examine the reasons why there has been such a slow and hectic development of anthropology in this country. As we will try to show, since the 19th century, Greek society has been attached to a double political and mental enterprise, which we name „modernization“: the construction of a modern state that acts as the main operator of social organization on the one hand, and nation-building on the other. These two projects have been combined, and one or the other has been given priority in different historical periods and by different political regimes, orienting to a large extent the directions of scientific work. More specifically, we will come across the strong influence of folklore and history as nation-building sciences starting from the end of the 19th century; they made difficult the establishment of social sciences and especially of anthropology as a critical discipline oriented towards the study of „cultural differences“. We will then examine the tighter economic, political and epistemological connexion of the country to the „West“ after WWII and the introduction of anthropology in Greece as part of a modernising process. Finally, we will place an emphasis on the ongoing transformations in the discipline during the last two decades, which represent its most flourishing period inside the Greek academia, and comment on some of the challenges facing anthropology today.

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