Sphakia: changing human geographies

1. Sphakia: changing human geographies

2. Outline • Scales • Demography • Economy • Culture and Identity • Representation

3. 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

4. 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

5. Temporal scales? Prehistoric Neolithic (up to 2600BC) Hellenistic 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 (1204-1669) Turkish (1669-1897) Modern Autonomous (1897-1913) Part of Greece (1913- EU full member (1986-

6. Global EU Greece Crete West Crete Chania ‘nomos’ (municipality) Sphakia ‘eparchy’ (prefecture) Village Street House Spatial Scales?

7. Demography

8. 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 12000 ! • 1828 2374

9. Changing demography • Maximum 20th century rural population 1950 ca 5 000 • Post war drift to cities especially Heraklion • rural depopulation • abandoned villages • growth of tourist economy (esp. North Coast) • seasonal increases for tourist trade

10. Sphakia prefecture: demography 1991 census Patsianos Anopolis 306 393 Skaloti Askifou 165 414 Agia Roumeli Asfendos 36 251 Agios Ionnis Imbros 53 Total 2182 178 Chora Sfakion 366 All defined as ‘mountainous

11. Economy

12. Economy • Traditionally subsistent pastoral peasant economy Fishing Transhumant sheep herding

13. The transhumant economy Winter lowland pastures Sheep + goats = milk + cheese Upland summer pastures

14. Economic landscapes Traditional olive cultivation • Arable limited • in extent to upland plains eg Anopolis • Stones cleared • from Anopolis • pasture

15. Settlement patterns Settlements mainly hamlets, many now abandonede.g Aradena Exceptions coastal fishing villages e.g. Loutro Hora Sfakion

16. 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

17. 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

18. The tourist economy • Picturesque notions of the primitive Loutro 1837

19. Tourism begins to impact • The charter flight-led revolution Loutro 1978

20. Sphakia very different from North coast • Elite minority ‘unspoilt’ resorts, independent tourism Loutro 2001

21. 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?

22. Tourist economy • Substituting a service sector transhumance for a primary production transhumance? • Winter ‘owner’ migration back to Chania? • Temporary summer labour Loutro in November

23. 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

24. Culture and identity

25. 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

26. 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

27. The Sfakiot: identity: making of a pre-modern myth 2. Access only recent: physically and socially remote

28. 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

29. The Sfakiot: identity: making of a pre-modern myth 4. Sphakia as fortress: repelling invaders? • Venetians • Turks • German’s • Tourists? Long history of successful resistance to invaders: guerrilla tradition

30. 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

31. 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

32. The Sfakiot: identity: making of a pre-modern myth • Are the noble savages of the mountain peasantry being wiped out by economic progress?

33. Change • Tourist behaviour confronting gender and social norms • Nude and topless bathing • Music • Differing attitudes to drinking (Damer 1988)

34. Change • Economic liberalization • jobs in tourist industry • EU investment in infrastructure: e.g. roads • EU support for mechanized agriculture • pull of the urban

35. Change • Social change • Equality legislation • Jobs outside of traditional sector bringing social change • Decline of traditional values • Abandoned churches • Roads into the wilderness

36. Representations • Medium, genre, intent and place • Semiotic and hermeneutic approaches

37. Representation • Landscape • Cultural: figures in landscape • Natural • Monuments • Churches • Houses • War memorials

38. Representation • Photographs • Landscape, people, abstract • Web • Postcards • ‘Snap’, science, or art?

39. Representation • Written word • Tourist guides • Travellers’ tales • Novels • Newspapers

40. Representation • Iconography • Restaurant signs, menus, village names, road signs, language

41. Representation • Mapping

42. 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

43. 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

44. 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