On Peripheral People, Places and Histories: Reflections on Migration between Greece and South Africa from a Diasporic South African Greek in Belfast

Description

In this talk, Dr Dina Zoe Belluigi (SSESW, QUB) shared her reflections as a third-generation Greek South African. It began with a very brief introduction on present day migration of Greeks and South Africans to Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom, to situate the talk. The main focus was on the migration to and from South Africa of those identifying as Greek, from the 19th Century onwards. To humanize the socio-political periods and timelines of the two countries, Dina drew from her family’s personal archives to provide insights into some of the diverse histories of her maternal ancestors from Ithaka (then British protectorate of the United States of the Ionian Islands, now Greece), Anchialos (Thrace, now Pomorie in Bulgaria), Imvros (now Gökçeada, Turkey) and Cyprus (then occupied by the British Empire, now Greece and Turkey), who went on to settle in The East Rand and East London (South Africa). Included will be reference to the contributions of three famous South African Greeks, as exceptions to the most often conservative, ‘apolitical’ and xenophobic dominant norms of the communities of her birth.

This was an invited talk for the The Philhellenic Society, Queen’s University Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Period	09 Feb 2023
Held at	School of History, Anthropology, Philosophy and Politics
Degree of Recognition	National