Aspasia Theodosiou

Authenticity, Ambiguity, Location: Gypsy Musicians on the Greek-albanian Border Aspasia Theodosiou

The book addresses how tensions around the politics of othering and ?difference' unfold in a historically constructed ambiguous/marginal place and around people who figure ambiguously in the national imaginary. Drawing on her fieldwork among the Parakalamos Gypsy musicians on the Greek-Albanian border, the author explores how these are reformulated within the recent emphasis on multiculturalism and cultural heritage in Greece. A key concern is how place and its locatedness are implicated in processes of othering and are played out in music. It is argued that the ambiguities embedded in gypsy music playing resonate with the same ambiguities that permeate the construction of place and do not relate to a 'separate' gypsy 'culture' or identity. The book also explores the ways such marginality impinges on Gypsies' processes of identification and its implications on the way interethnic relations are experienced and practiced. Situated where performativity theory and phenomenology merge the analysis centres around the notion of location in-between, in order to capture the unstable, partial and situated character of the intersubjective relations between place, people and music.