To most visitors passing through the city on their way to the beaches of Chalkidiki or to the Greek Islands, Thessaloniki means little more than its most famous tourist sites: the White Tower and the adjacent waterfront, the fortress dominating the upper city, and a few monuments from ancient, Byzantine or Ottoman times. But such reduced impressions do little justice to the rich multicultural past of the city, nor to its present position as a cultural and economic centre of northern Greece and a gate to the Balkans. Since the beginning of the 1990's, Thessaloniki has experienced vast economic, social and architectural transformations The last two decades have also brought significant changes to the city's urban image and public presentation. Sparked by its nomination as European Cultural Capital in 1997, there has also been a renewed interest in Thessaloniki's multicultural history, especially in the city's Sephardic heritage. The presence of new immigrants, mainly from Albania and the former Soviet Union, but also from Asia and Africa has also become quite visible in Thessaloniki's public space. Less obvious, but equally related to the transformations of the past two decades, is the increase of homeless persons spending their days and nights in the inner city and along the waterfront. The articles in this book are based on a student research project in Thessaloniki (2004), presenting five ethnographic case studies on local effects of these transformations, ranging from issues of new immigration, changing public representations in the Jewish community, to survival strategies of the urban homeless.

Over the last decade, concepts of diaspora and locality have gained complex new meanings in political discourse as well as in social and cultural studies. Diaspora, in particular, has acquired new meanings related to notions such as global deterritorialization, transnational migration and cultural hybridity. The authors discuss the key concepts and theory, focus on the meaning of religion both as a factor in forming diasporic social organisations, as well as shaping and maintaining diasporic identities, and the appropriation of space and place in history. It includes up to date research of the Caribbean, Irish, Armenian, African and Greek diasporas.

The concept of diaspora has evolved to include new meanings relating to global deterritorialization, transnational migration and cultural hybridity. In many cases it has come to replace minority, ethnic group and immigrant as a label of self reference and this development has introduced new perspectives on global networks and local identities. This study rejects the idea that locality has lost its meaning and argues that diaspora and locality are interrelated. The authors discuss the key concepts and theory, focusing on religion, the appropriation of space and place in history and the present. It features case histories on the Caribbean, Irish, Irish-American, Armenian, African and Greek diasporas.

Western popular images of Bulgaria are still fused with stereotypes about "the Balkans" as a peripheral "Other." In these constructions, cities and contemporary urban life hardly figure at all. This book presents a variety of urban livelihood strategies, social relations, and personal agencies in the context of social and cultural change. A central task of social anthropology is to bring the unfamiliar into focus, and this urban ethnographic study contributes to a better understanding of Sofia as a major city in contemporary Europe. (Series: lines. Beitrage zur Stadtforschung aus dem Institut fur Ethnologie der Universitat Hamburg - Vol. 7)

In the past decades, international port cities have been strongly aff ected by global transformation processes, dramatically altering life and work around the ports, the built environment and public imagery of urban waterfronts. Based on recent theories of city-port development, the ethnographic studies in this volume focus on local stakeholders perceptions and strategies in port cities in Europe and Latin America. Th is book covers a wide variety of urban fi elds, from traditional dockland communities, inland waterway sailors and new forms of migration and exile, to active agents of urban transformation.