Transcript Sfakia: changing human geographies

Sphakia: changing human
geographies
Outline
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Scales
Demography
Economy
Culture and Identity
Representation
Environmental relations in
Sphakia
• Aims
– How has the people-environment relationship
changed in Sphakia as a result of historic
changes in the mode of production
Environmental relations in
Sphakia
– 1. Research the nature of the Sphakiote landscape
– 2. View photographic evidence of different
environmental zones
– 3. What kinds of settlement have been associated with
these zones over time and how are the cultural and
physical landscapes linked?
– 4. Explain these changes over time
Temporal scales?
Prehistoric
Hellenistic
Neolithic (up to 2600BC)
Minoan and Mycenaean (2600-1100BC)
Iron Age and Ancient Greek (1100-67BC)
Greco-Roman (67BC-330 AD)
Byzantine First Byzantine (330-824)
Arab (824-961)
Second Byzantine (961-1204)
Venetian
Turkish
Modern
(1204-1669)
(1669-1897)
Autonomous (1897-1913)
Part of Greece (1913EU full member (1986-
Spatial Scales?
Global
EU
Greece
Crete
West Crete
Chania ‘nomos’
(municipality)
Sphakia ‘eparchy’
(prefecture)
Village
Street
House
Demography
Changing demography
– Problems of censuses
• Twentieth century massaging of figures eg 1981
census suggests 3615 - Damer (1989) suggests
should be ca 2600.
– Pre 20th century population crashes in response
to disease and wars
• e.g 1821-28 crash: plague after anti-Turkish revolt
– 1821
– 1828
12000 !
2374
Changing demography
– Maximum 20th century rural population 1950 ca
5 000
– Post war drift to cities especially Heraklion
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rural depopulation
abandoned villages
growth of tourist economy (esp. North Coast)
seasonal increases for tourist trade
Sphakia prefecture: demography 1991 census
Patsianos
306
Anopolis
393
Skaloti
165
Askifou
414
Agia Roumeli
36
Asfendos
251
Agios Ionnis
Imbros
53
Total 2182
178
Chora Sfakion
366
All defined as ‘mountainous
Economy
Economy
• Traditionally subsistent pastoral peasant
economy
Fishing
Transhumant sheep
herding
The transhumant economy
Winter lowland pastures
Sheep + goats = milk + cheese
Upland summer pastures
Economic landscapes
Traditional olive cultivation
Arable limited
in extent to upland plains eg Anopolis
Stones cleared
from Anopolis
pasture
Settlement patterns
Settlements mainly hamlets,
many now abandoned e.g Aradena
Exceptions coastal
fishing villages e.g.
Loutro
Hora Sfakion
Settlement patterns and landscape
• Settlement limited, population low
Yet
Rich cultural landscapes, wide diversity of human
impact over long time period
Changing focus and location of settlement
Changing economic landscapes
• Landscape of revolution: emphasis on
mountains
• Landscape of pastoralism: emphasis upon
grazing, settlement dispersed, determined
by water sources and predominantly inland
• Landscape of tourism: villages, coastal
The tourist economy
• Picturesque notions of the primitive
Loutro 1837
Tourism begins to impact
• The charter flight-led revolution
Loutro 1978
Sphakia very different from
North coast
• Elite minority ‘unspoilt’ resorts,
independent tourism
Loutro 2001
Scales of impact
• 250 000 visit Samaria gorge every year
• Coach to Omalas, walk down gorge, boat to
Chora Sphakion, coach to resort. Regulated
eco-tourism? Time scales?
• Should Loutro have a road?
Tourist economy
• Substituting a service sector transhumance
for a primary production transhumance?
– Winter ‘owner’ migration back to Chania?
– Temporary summer labour
Loutro in November
Economy as myth?
• Sphakia as uneasy mixture of tradition and
tourism?
The local and the global?
The old and the new?
The shepherd and the
businessman?
– To what extent are these simplifications
‘contemporary myths’
– Urry (1993) The tourist gaze
Culture and
identity
The Sfakiot identity
• ‘Commonsense’ notion in
1866 and still?
– fierce brave warrior spirit
(polikári)
– cunning
– rugged individualists: contempt
for the state
– feuding + sheep-stealing
– christian and family oriented
– warmly hospitable
– proud but friendly
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
1. Physical environment
– Lefva Ori as one of Europe’s last great
wildernesses
– Karst landscape
– Gorges
– Waterless
– Largely trackless
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
2. Access only recent: physically and
socially remote
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
3. Sources of legend: traveller’s tales
– Pashley (Pro-Greek academic positive)
– Spratt (Pro-Turk navel officer negative)
• Both used analogy with Scots and presented
Sphakiot’s and Sphakia in positive light for
their own political reasons
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
4. Sphakia as fortress: repelling invaders?
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Venetians
Turks
German’s
Tourists?
Long history of successful resistance to
invaders: guerrilla tradition
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
5. The 19th century Greek state and
imperial power politics
• Portrayal for propaganda reasons of Turkish
atrocities against Sfakiots as heroic struggle
• The ‘Great Game’ in the Eastern Mediterranean:
19th century power politics of Britain, France and
Russia
• Spying and dirty tricks to advance imperial projects
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
• 6. Sphakiots as ‘other’
– from other Greeks
– from other Cretans
– unique role of 19th century history in the
process of difference
– Sphakia as peripheral, marginal to Europe, front
line against the orient
The Sfakiot: identity: making of
a pre-modern myth
• Are the noble savages of the mountain
peasantry being wiped out by economic
progress?
Change
• Tourist behaviour confronting gender and
social norms
– Nude and topless bathing
– Music
– Differing attitudes to drinking (Damer 1988)
Change
• Economic liberalization
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jobs in tourist industry
EU investment in infrastructure: e.g. roads
EU support for mechanized agriculture
pull of the urban
Change
• Social change
– Equality legislation
– Jobs outside of traditional sector bringing social
change
– Decline of traditional values
– Abandoned churches
– Roads into the wilderness
Representations
• Medium, genre, intent and place
• Semiotic and hermeneutic approaches
Representation
• Landscape
– Cultural: figures in landscape
– Natural
• Monuments
– Churches
– Houses
– War memorials
Representation
• Photographs
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Landscape, people, abstract
Web
Postcards
‘Snap’, science, or art?
Representation
• Written word
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Tourist guides
Travellers’ tales
Novels
Newspapers
Representation
• Iconography
– Restaurant signs, menus, village names, road signs,
language
Representation
• Mapping
Environmental relations in
Sphakia
• Aims
– How has the people-environment relationship
changed in Sphakia as a result of historic
changes in the mode of production
Environmental relations in
Sphakia
– 1. Research the nature of the Sphakiote landscape
– 2. View photographic evidence of different
environmental zones
– 3. What kinds of settlement have been associated with
these zones over time and how are the cultural and
physical landscapes linked?
– 4. Explain these changes over time
Environmental zones in Sphakia
• Submit a group write-up addressing these
issues. Consult the following sources:
– Sphakia project video
– Sphakia Project home page environmental
zones section
– Rackham and Moody (1996) chapters 3 and 4.
– Nixon et al 1988, 1989 and 1990 available
from Sphakia home page publications links