The Greek House that America Built: Remittance Archaeology in the Global South

Summary

This is a paper/report submission presented at the 2020 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

A quarter of the working-age male population of Greece migrated to the U.S. between 1900 and 1915. Remittances sent home made up a third of Greece’s gross domestic product that was invested in the construction of rural houses, schools, and churches. Many of these villages were destroyed during the Second World War and the Greek Civil War or were depopulated in the mass urbanization of the 1960s. Archaeological fieldwork in the mountains of Greece and in the ethnic neighborhoods of the U.S. reveal intimate connections between objects and spaces in the multi-temporal experiences of the Greek American community. In a country where classical antiquity defines the nation state, an archaeology of the recent past challenges narratives of modernity in the Global South. We also explore the methodological difficulties of conducting fieldwork in two radically different archaeological traditions with their respective ideologies of immigration.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• 2020 SHA General Sessions   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2020

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Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology

Record Identifiers

PaperId(s): 945