FOLKLORISTICS OF STREETS IN ATHENS AND GREEK ‘URBAN FOLKLORE’
Keywords:
urban folklore, newly-established customs, urban streets, observances, rituals, cultural interest, multicultural communitiesAbstract
The streets of a city are its linchpins. They, above all, determine the urban fabric of the city and they form the places where communication and cultural expression takes place. They are the fundamental points in the way of life and in experience in urban space. Many and varied are the ways in which one may examine the importance of streets of the history and culture of the cities and towns of Greece. In what follows certain thoughts regarding the importance for folklore of streets will be set forth. We are dealing here with a type of post-modern symbolism, which in the view of Paul Hanson is rede- ϐining the content of popular culture in our cities. Within this culture streets play a major role, in that they unite and divide and bring about contact or separation and so express and pattern in schematic form identity and otherness.
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