Stavroula Pipyrou
Biographic Data
| ID | 638197 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stavroula Pipyrou |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stavroula |
| FAMILY NAME | Pipyrou |
| SIGNATURE | PIPYROU S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of St Andrews |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-0470-3390 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 89 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 18 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Is the Cold War over? Events, connections and experiences
This special issue explores the legacies, traces and continued lurkings of the Cold War in fieldsites from across the globe. Starting with the thorny question, ‘Is the Cold War over?’, contributors enquire about the forms of unfinished business that remain from a historical event that has gone partially silent. They investigate how events flow, merge and leave traces across diverse scales and scopes of ethnographic experience. The forum shows how…
Secrets and truths
How do anthropologists study epics? This forum intervention considers how large-scale events such as the Cold War can become subjects of ethnographic enquiry. Usually considered the domain of International Relations, History, and Politics, we argue that Cold War legacies are manifested in kinship relations, consumption practices, and embodied silences. Anthropologists can contribute to a much-needed scalar understanding of the Cold War across tem…
Futures in post-displacement Italy
On Security, Minorities, and Opportunistic Narcissism
At a global level, the last two decades have consistently witnessed the encroachment of right-wing rhetoric and anti-minority logos, with several states clearly promoting a discourse of fear of minorities. Seeing minorities either as the ‘enemy within’ or a political necessity that must be endured, states are sceptical in how they recognise or incorporate minority identities that threaten ideologies of national homogeneity. Adopting an anthropolo…
Emergent Axioms of Violence
This collection highlights the diverse and complicated ways that violence becomes axiomatic, namely through political rhetoric, epistemological impositions, and colonial legacies. Considering how axiomatic violence emerges from events of rupture as well as slow-moving structural inequalities, authors interrogate both the novelty and mundane quality of the current political moment. Approaching violence as axiomatic expands the conceptual lexicon f…
Displaced Children, Silence, and the Violence of Humanitarianism in Cold War Italy
In early 1950s Calabria, South Italy, thousands of children were displaced as a consequence of severe flooding. Under the banner of humanitarianism, children were relocated by the political left and center-right to live with communist families in the north of Italy or to reside in summer camps and Church institutions. For the left, the humanitarian initiative was framed in terms of solidarity and a vision of the future based on close-knit family …
MeToois little more than mob rule // vs //#MeToois a legitimate form of social justice
This Shortcuts section engages the debate on whether the #MeToo movement is best understood as a form of social justice, bringing heinous acts often shrouded in decades of silence into the public domain, or as mob rule, foregoing official legal channels to summarily shame individuals through unmoderated character assassination. The four contributors offer diverse views on the efficacy of the #MeToo movement to bring forth structural change. They …
Suspended Lives
The Grecanici of Southern Italy
In this groundbreaking ethnography of "fearless governance", Stavroula Pipyrou shows how Grecanici—the Greek linguistic minority of Calabria, Southern Italy—have crafted the means to invert hegemonic culture and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales.
Adrift in Time
The recent financial crisis has become a trigger for reflection on highly affective, shocking and upsetting silenced pasts in Reggio Calabria. Personal consideration of the present, as Benedetto Croce suggests, unlocks the archives of past crises such as the displacement of adults and children as a result of natural disasters-events which, for long periods, have remained shrouded in silence, inaccessible and well guarded. I argue that silence sho…
Governance, Theatricality, and Fantasma in Mafia Dance
This chapter endeavours to capture novel ways of thinking about 'development' as part of a wider project of exploring how dimensions of time, space, and memory inform and are captured in social performance. With reference to the theatricality of 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) dance performances in Reggio Calabria, South Italy, I wish to focus on a specific form of dance whose insertion into a ritualistic1 framework not only works as indigenous sch…
You can die but once? Creativity, narrative and epistemology in Western death
Employing two case studies from different spheres of anthropological practice, we argue that a narrative approach provides productive analytical ground for the study of Western death. It has been argued that narratives are attempts to create a presence to what is absent and truth to what is imagined and forgotten. Inverting this thesis, in this paper, we investigate how narratives can create absence where there is presence and ignite imagination …
Narrating death
This paper examines cases of suicide in rural Greece where the deceased have been provided with new affective narratives that detract from the circumstances of death. Living relatives redirect public attention away from the social taboo of suicide by reconfiguring affective stories that appeal to the local tool‐kit for dealing with unexpected death. Resultantly, the reputation of the family remains untainted by the connotations of immorality and …
Cuttingbella figura
Ravaged by financial austerity, people in Reggio Calabria, South Italy, are deeply concerned about their ability to maintain abella figura(beautiful appearance). The introduction of secondhand clothes markets in 2010 was met with high emotions, bringing to the surface anxieties about the smothering social pressures to display a certain appearance and status in public. In troublesome encounters with secondhand clothes donated from northern Europe,…
Altruism and Sacrifice
As a social phenomenon that torments modern states, mafia receives considerable political and legal attention. The term mafia itself is often directly related to criminality and violence. Thus far violence has been employed as an analytical construct that could explain compliance with the mafia ethos. Nevertheless this schema fails to take into consideration possible discourses that make mafia tolerable. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Reggio C…
Commensurable language and incommensurable claims among the Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy
More than ever, minorities reflexively engage with global frameworks in their endeavour to promote distinctiveness. Scaling local diversity through specific frameworks has resulted in familiar commensurable languages of international claim recognition. By presenting the case of the Grecanici – a Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy – this paper critically assesses the creative mingling of global structures and local particularities which e…
Dance and Difference
This article is concerned with Pontic dance, particularly as part of the celebrations of Panayía Soumelá, as a marker of identity for the Pontians in Greece. Adopting a historical perspective, we explore how markers of identity are intimately related to the systemic overvaluation of the Pontian Self. We argue that a strong Pontian referential system is based on the cultivation of clear markers of identity. Drawing on the concept of "the narcissis…
Urbanities
This paper discusses degrees of urbanity or urbanities using ethnographic data from research conducted among the Grecanici communities in the city of Reggio Calabria, south Italy. Urbanization in south Italy is usually associated with social and territorial mobility, education and natural disasters. It is further discussed in terms of a rural/urban duality that masks rather than reveals possible diversities concerning the social life in the city …
Cuttingbella figura
Ravaged by financial austerity, people in Reggio Calabria, South Italy, are deeply concerned about their ability to maintain abella figura(beautiful appearance). The introduction of secondhand clothes markets in 2010 was met with high emotions, bringing to the surface anxieties about the smothering social pressures to display a certain appearance and status in public. In troublesome encounters with secondhand clothes donated from northern Europe,…
Altruism and Sacrifice
As a social phenomenon that torments modern states, mafia receives considerable political and legal attention. The term mafia itself is often directly related to criminality and violence. Thus far violence has been employed as an analytical construct that could explain compliance with the mafia ethos. Nevertheless this schema fails to take into consideration possible discourses that make mafia tolerable. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Reggio C…
Adrift in Time
The recent financial crisis has become a trigger for reflection on highly affective, shocking and upsetting silenced pasts in Reggio Calabria. Personal consideration of the present, as Benedetto Croce suggests, unlocks the archives of past crises such as the displacement of adults and children as a result of natural disasters-events which, for long periods, have remained shrouded in silence, inaccessible and well guarded. I argue that silence sho…
Narrating death
This paper examines cases of suicide in rural Greece where the deceased have been provided with new affective narratives that detract from the circumstances of death. Living relatives redirect public attention away from the social taboo of suicide by reconfiguring affective stories that appeal to the local tool‐kit for dealing with unexpected death. Resultantly, the reputation of the family remains untainted by the connotations of immorality and …
Emergent Axioms of Violence
This collection highlights the diverse and complicated ways that violence becomes axiomatic, namely through political rhetoric, epistemological impositions, and colonial legacies. Considering how axiomatic violence emerges from events of rupture as well as slow-moving structural inequalities, authors interrogate both the novelty and mundane quality of the current political moment. Approaching violence as axiomatic expands the conceptual lexicon f…
MeToois little more than mob rule // vs //#MeToois a legitimate form of social justice
This Shortcuts section engages the debate on whether the #MeToo movement is best understood as a form of social justice, bringing heinous acts often shrouded in decades of silence into the public domain, or as mob rule, foregoing official legal channels to summarily shame individuals through unmoderated character assassination. The four contributors offer diverse views on the efficacy of the #MeToo movement to bring forth structural change. They …
Commensurable language and incommensurable claims among the Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy
More than ever, minorities reflexively engage with global frameworks in their endeavour to promote distinctiveness. Scaling local diversity through specific frameworks has resulted in familiar commensurable languages of international claim recognition. By presenting the case of the Grecanici – a Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy – this paper critically assesses the creative mingling of global structures and local particularities which e…
Displaced Children, Silence, and the Violence of Humanitarianism in Cold War Italy
In early 1950s Calabria, South Italy, thousands of children were displaced as a consequence of severe flooding. Under the banner of humanitarianism, children were relocated by the political left and center-right to live with communist families in the north of Italy or to reside in summer camps and Church institutions. For the left, the humanitarian initiative was framed in terms of solidarity and a vision of the future based on close-knit family …
Urbanities
This paper discusses degrees of urbanity or urbanities using ethnographic data from research conducted among the Grecanici communities in the city of Reggio Calabria, south Italy. Urbanization in south Italy is usually associated with social and territorial mobility, education and natural disasters. It is further discussed in terms of a rural/urban duality that masks rather than reveals possible diversities concerning the social life in the city …
Dance and Difference
This article is concerned with Pontic dance, particularly as part of the celebrations of Panayía Soumelá, as a marker of identity for the Pontians in Greece. Adopting a historical perspective, we explore how markers of identity are intimately related to the systemic overvaluation of the Pontian Self. We argue that a strong Pontian referential system is based on the cultivation of clear markers of identity. Drawing on the concept of "the narcissis…
Urbanities
This paper discusses degrees of urbanity or urbanities using ethnographic data from research conducted among the Grecanici communities in the city of Reggio Calabria, south Italy. Urbanization in south Italy is usually associated with social and territorial mobility, education and natural disasters. It is further discussed in terms of a rural/urban duality that masks rather than reveals possible diversities concerning the social life in the city …
Commensurable language and incommensurable claims among the Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy
More than ever, minorities reflexively engage with global frameworks in their endeavour to promote distinctiveness. Scaling local diversity through specific frameworks has resulted in familiar commensurable languages of international claim recognition. By presenting the case of the Grecanici – a Greek linguistic minority of Southern Italy – this paper critically assesses the creative mingling of global structures and local particularities which e…
Dance and Difference
This article is concerned with Pontic dance, particularly as part of the celebrations of Panayía Soumelá, as a marker of identity for the Pontians in Greece. Adopting a historical perspective, we explore how markers of identity are intimately related to the systemic overvaluation of the Pontian Self. We argue that a strong Pontian referential system is based on the cultivation of clear markers of identity. Drawing on the concept of "the narcissis…
You can die but once? Creativity, narrative and epistemology in Western death
Employing two case studies from different spheres of anthropological practice, we argue that a narrative approach provides productive analytical ground for the study of Western death. It has been argued that narratives are attempts to create a presence to what is absent and truth to what is imagined and forgotten. Inverting this thesis, in this paper, we investigate how narratives can create absence where there is presence and ignite imagination …
Narrating death
This paper examines cases of suicide in rural Greece where the deceased have been provided with new affective narratives that detract from the circumstances of death. Living relatives redirect public attention away from the social taboo of suicide by reconfiguring affective stories that appeal to the local tool‐kit for dealing with unexpected death. Resultantly, the reputation of the family remains untainted by the connotations of immorality and …
Cuttingbella figura
Ravaged by financial austerity, people in Reggio Calabria, South Italy, are deeply concerned about their ability to maintain abella figura(beautiful appearance). The introduction of secondhand clothes markets in 2010 was met with high emotions, bringing to the surface anxieties about the smothering social pressures to display a certain appearance and status in public. In troublesome encounters with secondhand clothes donated from northern Europe,…
Altruism and Sacrifice
As a social phenomenon that torments modern states, mafia receives considerable political and legal attention. The term mafia itself is often directly related to criminality and violence. Thus far violence has been employed as an analytical construct that could explain compliance with the mafia ethos. Nevertheless this schema fails to take into consideration possible discourses that make mafia tolerable. Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Reggio C…
Governance, Theatricality, and Fantasma in Mafia Dance
This chapter endeavours to capture novel ways of thinking about 'development' as part of a wider project of exploring how dimensions of time, space, and memory inform and are captured in social performance. With reference to the theatricality of 'Ndrangheta (Calabrian mafia) dance performances in Reggio Calabria, South Italy, I wish to focus on a specific form of dance whose insertion into a ritualistic1 framework not only works as indigenous sch…
The Grecanici of Southern Italy
In this groundbreaking ethnography of "fearless governance", Stavroula Pipyrou shows how Grecanici—the Greek linguistic minority of Calabria, Southern Italy—have crafted the means to invert hegemonic culture and participate in the power games of minority politics on local and national scales.
Adrift in Time
The recent financial crisis has become a trigger for reflection on highly affective, shocking and upsetting silenced pasts in Reggio Calabria. Personal consideration of the present, as Benedetto Croce suggests, unlocks the archives of past crises such as the displacement of adults and children as a result of natural disasters-events which, for long periods, have remained shrouded in silence, inaccessible and well guarded. I argue that silence sho…
Suspended Lives
MeToois little more than mob rule // vs //#MeToois a legitimate form of social justice
This Shortcuts section engages the debate on whether the #MeToo movement is best understood as a form of social justice, bringing heinous acts often shrouded in decades of silence into the public domain, or as mob rule, foregoing official legal channels to summarily shame individuals through unmoderated character assassination. The four contributors offer diverse views on the efficacy of the #MeToo movement to bring forth structural change. They …
Displaced Children, Silence, and the Violence of Humanitarianism in Cold War Italy
In early 1950s Calabria, South Italy, thousands of children were displaced as a consequence of severe flooding. Under the banner of humanitarianism, children were relocated by the political left and center-right to live with communist families in the north of Italy or to reside in summer camps and Church institutions. For the left, the humanitarian initiative was framed in terms of solidarity and a vision of the future based on close-knit family …
On Security, Minorities, and Opportunistic Narcissism
At a global level, the last two decades have consistently witnessed the encroachment of right-wing rhetoric and anti-minority logos, with several states clearly promoting a discourse of fear of minorities. Seeing minorities either as the ‘enemy within’ or a political necessity that must be endured, states are sceptical in how they recognise or incorporate minority identities that threaten ideologies of national homogeneity. Adopting an anthropolo…
Emergent Axioms of Violence
This collection highlights the diverse and complicated ways that violence becomes axiomatic, namely through political rhetoric, epistemological impositions, and colonial legacies. Considering how axiomatic violence emerges from events of rupture as well as slow-moving structural inequalities, authors interrogate both the novelty and mundane quality of the current political moment. Approaching violence as axiomatic expands the conceptual lexicon f…
Futures in post-displacement Italy
Is the Cold War over? Events, connections and experiences
This special issue explores the legacies, traces and continued lurkings of the Cold War in fieldsites from across the globe. Starting with the thorny question, ‘Is the Cold War over?’, contributors enquire about the forms of unfinished business that remain from a historical event that has gone partially silent. They investigate how events flow, merge and leave traces across diverse scales and scopes of ethnographic experience. The forum shows how…
Secrets and truths
How do anthropologists study epics? This forum intervention considers how large-scale events such as the Cold War can become subjects of ethnographic enquiry. Usually considered the domain of International Relations, History, and Politics, we argue that Cold War legacies are manifested in kinship relations, consumption practices, and embodied silences. Anthropologists can contribute to a much-needed scalar understanding of the Cold War across tem…
Sociology (12 works) · Law (9 works) · Political science (9 works) · Anthropological Studies and Insights (8 works) · Law (6 works) · Psychology (6 works) · Politics (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Philosophy (4 works) · Philosophy (4 works)