Lecture + Documentary Screening

Movement, Production, and Memory:From Anchialos in Eastern Rumelia to Nea Anchialos in Magnesia through the Archives of the “DIMITRA” Cooperative
Alexandros Kapaniaris
Thursday 30.4, 14:00

This presentation examines the dynamic relationship between population movements, productive activity, and the formation of collective memory, focusing on the transition from Anchialos in Eastern Rumelia to Nea Anchialos in Magnesia. Through the archival records of the “DIMITRA” Cooperative, the study highlights the ways in which refugees reconstructed their economic and social lives, transferring knowledge, practices, and identities to their new place of settlement.At the same time, the presentation explores how production — particularly within the agricultural and cooperative sectors — functioned not only as a means of survival but also as a vehicle for preserving and reshaping memory and cultural continuity. In this way, productive activity contributed to the formation of a new local identity deeply rooted in the past.

Bio
Alexandros G. Kapaniaris holds a PhD in Digital Folklore from the Department of Preschool Education and Educational Design at the University of the Aegean. He has completed two postdoctoral research projects on archival ethnography at the Department of History & Ethnology of Democritus University of Thrace. He has taught courses on digital cultural heritage, digital applications and new technologies, and cultural management at the Universities of Piraeus, Ioannina, Western Macedonia, Democritus University of Thrace, and the Hellenic Open University.

During 2021–22, he was a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Political Science and International Relations of the University of the Peloponnese, conducting research on archival ethnography related to migration.Since 2017, he has served as a Tutor-Counselor at the Hellenic Open University and, for the past two years, in the postgraduate program Digital Humanities, where he also coordinates the thematic unit “Digital Management of Cultural Heritage (ΨΑΕ60).”

From 2014 to 2021, he was the scientific coordinator of the project marking the 100 years of continuous operation of the Zagora Agricultural Cooperative, documenting the organization’s memory and history under the title “A Century of Cooperative Tradition and Struggle.” From 2018 to 2023, he was also the scientific coordinator of the centennial project for the Nea Anchialos Agricultural Winemaking Cooperative “DIMITRA,” documenting the organization’s memory and history under the title “From Anchialos of Eastern Rumelia to Nea Anchialos of Magnesia: Memories of Refuge and Histories of Cooperation.”

In 2014, for his work “The Mayides of Makrinitsa,” in 2018 for “Digital Folklore and Education,” and in 2019 for the two-volume work “Zagora Agricultural Cooperative: A Century of Cooperative Tradition and Struggle – History, Cooperative Values, and the Culture of Agricultural Production,” he was awarded the “Lysimachos Kaftantzoglou Prize” by the School of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Within the framework of the course  MACHINE IN THE GARDEN: Wanderings Through the Countryside
By The Observatory of the Countryside
Tutor: Metaxia Markaki

For the link contact  memarkaki@uth.gr