Communities and Boundaries along the Southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coastline
Communities and Boundaries along the Southern Bulgarian Black Sea Coastline

Author(s): Ana Luleva
Subject(s): Anthropology, Social Sciences
Published by: Етнографски институт САНУ
Keywords: border zones; boundaries; ethnicity; gender
Summary/Abstract: The article deals with the structuring of the boundaries and the communities in the region of the Southern Bulgarian Black Sea coast – the towns of Sozopol, Pomorie and Nessebar. As a result of the migration waves after WWI coexisting in these towns were the local Greek population and the refugees from the Eastern and Aegean Thrace and Macedonia. This region could be described as border zone “where one thing gradually shifts into something else, where is blurring, ambiguity and uncertainty” (Hannerz 1998). On the basis of the field research, an attempt is made to outline the borders, meaningful for the structuring of the collective identities: the territorial border, the state frontier, the socio-cultural boundaries between the local Greeks and the immigrants ( refugees), between the hosts and tourists, between local inhabitants and the “newly rich”. It is drawn the conclusion that the collective identities are changing within a different political context; they are contradictory and without any stable and unchangeable borders. The communities are not homogenous; in the everyday life there are different levels of interaction – between relatives, friends, neighbors, locals and researchers etc.; the communities and boundaries are constructed in a context-determined manner. Part of the ethnographic contribution to their understanding is precisely the deciphering of the way the borders are structured and the meaning that people attach to them. This also raises the question about the role of the researchers in the structuring of the communities.

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