'Internal Frontiers' as a Hindrance to Development

Abstract

This paper analyses the socio-economic implications of the imposition of 'zone under surveillance' status upon an area along the northern borders of Greece, throughout most of the twentieth century. This zone was enclosed to the north by a border separating Greece from other countries and to the south by a frontier separating the Greeks in the zone from the rest of their country. This state of affairs has created many problems within the surveillance zone (such as a feeling among the population that their area is under threat, less developed than and only partially assimilated to the rest of Greece). The paper focuses on the function of the surveillance zone as an 'internal frontier', and not on its earlier function as a defence mechanism, and on one particular part of the zone, in the prefecture of Xanthi, which is inhabited by Pomaks.