2006 Research project called The Transformation of a Peripheral Community
The visit in 2002 provided material for an application to the ESRC (Economic and Social Research Council) for a grant towards a twelve week project (during Study Leave) to discuss all the changes that were taking place on the island. This took place in the spring of 2006. The report can be found on the ESRC Society Today page (RES-000-22-1641).
Publications which resulted include 'Apollo and the Virgin: the changing meanings of a sacred site on Anafi' (2009) History and Anthropology 20, 4 pp 485-508 and 'The "beanpole" family: cultural aspects of "the demographic crisis" in Greece', South European Society and Politics 17, 4 pp 533-551.
The visit to Anafi was timed not only so as to be there to celebrate Easter, but also so that we were on the island in time to celebrate the fortieth anniversary of my arrival on the island on 18 May 1966. To mark this anniversary, the Committee of the village (now a 'demos') council unanimously approved a proposal to make me an Honorary Citizen of the island: the wording was 'epitimi dimotissa tis Anafis'.
We were also very fortunate in meeting at that time Philia Hayes (Triantafilia Geotes Hayes) whose mother's father was Nikolaos Syrigos, 'Tsarzaloudhi', from Anafi, at one time owner of the large house on a hill below the village. Philia's book, 'Twice My Child', is a rich record of Anafi life, and of the lives of those, like Philia's father, a priest, Nikolaos Tziotis [Geotes] who migrated to the United States.
