Incorporating Greek migration and diaspora studies in the Greek University

Historian Donna Gabaccia (1997 & 1998) offers a framework to think about strategies of inclusion of Greek diaspora and migration studies in the Greek university.

If structural changes for creating such new departments are costly (or resisted), faculty who wish to internationalize (or transnationalize) their disciplines could move toward incorporating migration and diasporas as constitutive agents of modern Greece within their existing departments. Also as examples illuminating a variety of issues (say "neoliberalism and philanthropy," "the making of cultural conservatism as hegemony," "the spectacularization of folkness and tourism," etc. (see below)

Here is Gabaccia's reflections and proposal:

"Research on Italians abroad suggests at least two ways to bring 'gli italiani nelmondo', and their migrations and return, closer to the interpretative center of histories of modem Italy. While both strategies depend on methodologies which might be described as 'Italy-outward', one envisions a history of modern Italy that is still firmly national in its concerns, while the other might best be characterized as'internationalizing' the history of Italy by interpreting it within global or internationalperspectives.

Historical critiques of the nation state and of nationalism have recently generateda wide variety of calls for the 'internationalizing' of national historiographies(Gabaccia 1994). They have created the foundations as well for a burgeoning new interest in 'transnational' research and in the teaching of world (or global) history (Glick Schiller et al 1992). Among Italianists, both Ferdinando Fasce .. and Richard Bosworth ...demonstrate one approach to internationalizing Italian history. Fasce focuses on a myriad business, cultural, migratory andideological connections between Italy and the USA in the late nineteenth andtwentieth centuries. (His work parallels an earlier US study of relations with Italy by Diggins 1975.) Bosworth examines Italy's connections even more broadly,taking into account not only global Italian migrations but Italian diplomacy,militarism and imperialism, commerce, culture and tourism.

A second possibility for internationalizing Italian history is a 'transnational'history of Italian peoples, in which Italy and Italian life remain central 'nodes' in aworldwide diaspora. In such an approach, Italy's history could be interpreted asever-responsive to, and simultaneously an important influence upon, developmentsamong gli italiani nel mondo. Certainly, a goal of an internationalized Italian history has guided the scholars collaborating on the international project, 'For Us There are No Frontiers', on Italian labor migration and labor radicalismaround the globe (Gabaccia and Ottanelli 1995).

Presumably, however, most historians of Italy will not — in the immediatefuture - transform themselves into comparativists, or historians of the world, of the diaspora, or even of the Italian 'nodes' of that diaspora. Thus, I concentrate below on how better to interpret migration from within Italy's existing, and firmly national, historiography. Emilio Franzina's call for a history of migration that is 'more Italian than American' (Franzina 1995:7) can be amended to a call fora history 'more Italian than diasporic'—an interpretation of Italian history and life,informed by migration and return from all parts of the world, not merely theAmericas. Ultimately, many more Italian historians might prefer the task of'nationalizing' the vast historiographies on gli italiani nel mondo, and making them as much a part of Italian history as they are of US, Canadian, French orArgentine history."

This approach is practiced in the Greek University within departments of history with great results. One could think of topics such as "diaspora intellectuals and Greek culture: Interventions and controversies," "Greek poetry and diaspora literary criticism," "Creating conservative hegemony: The Greek American example," "Critical internet studies and the diaspora," "The Folk as spectacle in Greece and the diaspora," "Neoliberalism and philanthropy: Greece and the diaspora," etc.

I write this as I venture into a new diaspora research topic and once again I am confronted with major gaps in Greek-related scholarship. This makes me appreciate even more the available research. Given our small numbers we face serious limits in advancing the field of Greek migration and diaspora studies.