Mediterraneanism. Geographical Representations of the Mediterranean

γκαραγκουνης Thanos Garagounis 24γραμματαThanos Garagounis
Essay III. Geopolitics
2013

Free ebook- 24grammata.com
[κατέβασέτο]

ηλ. εκδόσεις  24grammata.com (σειρά εν καινώ)
Αριθμός σειράς: 57

Γκαραγκουνης 24γραμματαAbout the author
Thanos Gkaragkounis was born in 1977.
He is a Human Geographer. He has written many books on geography, space, the history and philosophy of space, representation, poststructuralism and postmodernity and the geography of the consumer society. Since 2010 he has taught at University of Patras, Democritus University of Thrace, Technological Institute of Mesologgi and Harokopeio University.
_______________________________________________________

ISBN: 978-618-80809-2-8
Εν Καινώ: www.24grammata.com
Αριθμός σειράς: 57

Free ebook- 24grammata.com
[κατέβασέτο]

Contents
Chapters _______________________________________________page
The Argument________________________________________
Introduction ______________________________________
Mediterraneanism _________________________________
A working hypothesis ______________________________16

Orientalism /Mediterraneanism ______________________ 23
Setting the Agenda _________________________________26

1. The Old Town Problem ______________________ 36
2. The Consumer Society and the Mediterranean Town _____________________________________
67 3. Mediterraneanist Identities___________________ 79
4. The Political Economy of the Mediterranean Space_____________________________________
5. The Restoration Project and the Town of Rethemnos ________________________________
123
151 Conclusion _______________________________________ 220
Bibliography ______________________________________231

Free ebook- 24grammata.com
[κατέβασέτο]

The Argument
Fernand Braudel (1972) in his study The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II suggested, among other things that the Mediterranean world despite its differences should be conceived of as a unit. The present study is not an attempt to challenge Braudel’s entire work on historical or pragmatological grounds, but an effort to question the unitary conception of the Mediterranean region.
Specifically, I explore how a small Mediterranean town, Rethemnos, Crete, Southern Greece, was theorized on the back of this widespread conception that wants the Mediterranean to be a unit, and how a differential reading of the town is possible once various theories and conceptions of postmodernism and poststructuralism are put forward with respect to Rethemnos.
I draw mostly on theories of the consumer society (Jean Baudrillard’s and Zygmunt Bauman’s analyses) in an attempt to document that Rethemnos is a society that is currently organized by recourse to the internal contradictions of the consumer society.
Prior to that, I will be criticizing, with respect to how the Greek subject was depicted on the back of the unitary fashion of conceiving of the Mediterranean region, a variety of studies of anthropological origin, based on Greece; and I will be also criticizing, on the back of the same unitary fashion, a variety of studies of politico-economic origin this time, based on Greece as well, drawing on certain aspects of Jacques Derrida’s deconstructive strategies and Gilles Deleuze’s and Felix Guattari’s geo-philosophy. In my last two books The Concept of Space in Continental Philosophy (ISBN: 978-960-93-5019-8) (in Greek) and The Geoeconomy of Value (ISBN: 978-618-80809-0-4) (in English) published earlier this year by the electronic journal www.24grammata.com, I argued that there is a certain sense in which a certain spatiality –a state of mind –organizes the spaces of philosophy and economy (aka value) prior to anything else; empirical or practical- without however denying the pragmatics and analytics of context in which theory and value materialize. The present book is the last piece of what was intended to be a trilogy of the geographies of philosophy (geophilosphy), economy (geoeconomy) and now politics (geopolitics). It is not an ordinary geopolitical analysis. It is a politics of space, place, the subject, representation and their relationships in the Mediterranean. But then geopolitics is not always as ordinary as is often assumed. Clearly, there is no need for the reader to be familiar with the arguments in the first two books in order to read the present book; occasionally, a purposeful but genuine unfamiliarity may be an advantage.
Mediterraneanism…

Free ebook- 24grammata.com
[κατέβασέτο]