Feeling like a Tourist

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Notes

¹ For further discussion and example of this, see Nick Ridout (2003).

² See for example MacCannell (1973), Graburn and Barthel-Bouchier (2001) and Edensor (2001).

³ See also Edensor (1998, 2001).

⁴ While much effort is currently expended in trying to integrate and imagine the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia as part of Europe, the Balkan Wars of 1912–1913 saw the territory of Macedonia divided between Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece. During this time, Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece either suppressed or denied the existence of a Macedonian identity or state, and continue to take exception to it. Greece, in particular, sees the existence and recognition of an autonomous Macedonian state as a threat to both the singularity of its nation and the integrity of its current territorial borders. This is in part explained by Greek claims to be the locus of an historical state called Macedonia – and with it a series of narratives of an heroic nationhood regarding the exploits of Alexander the Great – but also by its concerns to retain an idea of a place called Macedonia that is inherently Greek and part of an ethnic Greek nation. In 1993, a Greek doctoral student, Anastasia Karakasidou, published an article in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies documenting the existence of a linguistic and cultural minority in Northern Greece, self-identifying as ‘Macedonians’. The subsequent furore led to a series of personal attacks on Karakasidou, and Cambridge University Press withdrew its plans to publish her book, citing fear for the safety of their employees in Greece if they did so (for further discussion, see Brown 2003).

⁵ The cultural exchange facilitated by the British Council in Macedonia is not simply an exercise in good will but a pedagogic effort to use liberal arts in the generation of liberal politics and values. Alongside their program of cultural exchange in Macedonia, the British Council also run the UK-SEE Forum – the UK-South East Europe Forum – which seeks to build links between the UK and the ‘next generation of political leaders’ in the region and within the region itself. While these activities run in tandem, the attunement offered by one seems at every turn to be supported and/or endorsed by the other. The education of attunement within this pedagogy of cultural exchange parallels being a creative society to being a civil one.