National belonging, transnational localities and ideologies of language: Discursive practices at the Greek-Albanian borderlands

Research Area 3 – Objects, Traces, Mapping: Everyday Experience of Spaces

Contact: ekaterina.zheltova@cefres.cz (from 1st September 2018)

In my PhD project I explore how people living in the Albanian-Greek borderland region imagine and narrate their lives on the border, their relations with the nation-state(s), and their linguistic experience in this contested space.

The border region of the Albanian-Greek frontier is one of the vivid examples of a space existing in a dichotomy of controversial national narratives, different languages spoken sometimes by the closest neighbors, long-existing conflicts, often economic or political but usually interpreted in ethnic terms, that coexist with the “mixed” marriages, friendships and businesses.

In my research I focus on the ideologies of language, that emerge, transfer and change in such a setting, as well as their connection to various aspects of social and political life of the region. In other words, I try to approach the metalinguistic discourse, or to understand how people talk about language(s) and why. In order to do so I employ the perspective of linguistic anthropology and multi-sited ethnography. I engage in multu-local social networks on both sides of the border and conduct life-history interviews, semi-structured, unstructured and focused interviews complemented by (participant) observation and analysis of political and media discourse.

CV

Education

2017-: PhD studies in International Area Studies at Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Social Sciences, Institute of International Studies, Department of Russian and East European Studies

2015-2017: Postgraduate program in Anthropology at European University at Saint Petersburg, Department of Anthropology

2013-2015: M.A. in Sociolinguistics at European University at Saint Petersburg, Department of Anthropology

2013–2015: M.A. program in Theory of Language at Saint Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philology

2009-2013: B.A. in Modern Greek and Byzantine Studies at Saint Petersburg State University, Faculty of Philology

Thesis/Projects

• PhD Thesis (in progress): National belonging, transnational localities and ideologies of language: Discursive practices at the Greek-­‐Albanian borderlands
• MA Thesis (2015): Discursive strategies of identity construction in the Greek speaking communities of Albania (Himara and Dervitsani)
• BA Diploma Paper (2013): Ditransitive constructions with pronominal arguments in Modern Greek

Publications

• Zheltova, Ekaterina (2016): Constructing “Greek” and “Albanian”: Linguistic Ideologies in the Greek-­‐speaking Communities of Southern Albania (Northern Epirus). Saint-­‐Petersburg, Forum for Anthropology and Culture (28): 246-­‐259 [in Russian]
• Kotsira, Eleni – Zheltova, Ekaterina – Asanaki, Katerina (2016): Ideologizing Language, Constructing Boundaries: Locality, Ethnicity and Nationalism in the Greek Minority Village of
  Dervitsani, Albania. In: Nitsiakos, Vassilis – Manos, Ioannis – Agelopoulos, Georgios – Angelidou, Aliki – Dalkavoukis, Vassilis – Kravva, Vasiliki (Eds.) Ethnographic research in border areas:
  Contributions to the study of international frontiers in Southeast Europe. E-­‐book, ISBN 978-­‐960-­‐93-­‐8755-­‐2, The Border Crossings Network, http://bordercrossings.eu/publications/border-­‐areas
• Zheltova, Ekaterina (2017): Ditransitive constructions with pronominal arguments in Modern Greek: Competing hierarchies and constraints. In Valentin F. Vydrin, Anastasia V. Lyakhovich
  Page 2 of 3 (Eds.) В жёлтой жаркой Африке.. К 50-­‐летию Александра Желтова, Нестор-­‐История, 2017 [in
  Russian]

In Print

• Zheltova, Ekaterina. “We are more Greek than the Greeks”: identities and linguistic ideologies in Greek speaking communities of Southern Albania (Northern Epirus). In: Nitsiakos, V., Manos, I., Agelopoulos, G., Angelidou, A., Dalkavoukis, V. (eds.) Balkan Border Crossings: Forth Annual of the Konitsa Summer School. Berlin: LIT

Research Interests

Albanian-­Greek border, Balkans, linguistic anthropology, ethnicity and nationalism, transnationalism, linguistic ideologies, border studies, discourse analysis

Grants and Scholarships

• 2018: research grant of GAUK (project # 946218)
• 2017–: Doctoral scholarship, Charles University
• 2015–2017: Full tuition waiver and doctoral scholarship from the European University at Saint Petersburg
• 2013–2015: Full tuition waiver and master scholarship from the European University at Saint Petersburg
• 2012–2015: Excellence scholarship of SPBU
• 2012–2013: Scholarship of the government of St. Petersburg

Conferences

• June 4-6 2018: ASN European Conference “Nationalism in times
  of uncertainty” – “Actually, I am Cham”: Performing the discourses on the “Cham issue” in the Albanian-Greek borderlands
• December 1-2 2017: Balkan Express conference “The invisible, the overlooked, the forgotten” – What does a silence tell: Micro-politics of categories and “cultural intimacy” at the Albanian-Greek borderlands
• April 7-8 2017: The Tartu Seminar “A divided continent in search
  of a common language?” – Political Economy and Anthropology of EEU and Its Relations with EU (in co-authorship with Heler Daniel)
• March 2017: International Philological Conference, St.
  Petersburg State University – “Actually, I am Cham”: the use of terms “Cham” and “Chameria” in the local discursive practices at the Greek-Albanian borderland
• September 23-25 2016: 1st international conference “Europe in Discourse: identity, diversity, borders”, Athens – “You are speaking Greek but acting like an Albanian”: discursive construction of national sameness and difference in every day talk among the Greek speakers of Sothern Albania (Northern Epirus)
• September 1-3 2016: International Annual CCCS Conference
  “Dislocations and Cultural Conflicts: Migrations, Diaspora, Terrorism, Borders” (MDTB), Skopje – Constructing folk linguistic knowledge in minority: linguistic ideologies among the Greek speakers in Himara and Dervitsiani (Southern Albania/Northern
  Epirus)
• February 2016: 14th International Postgraduate Conference on
  Central and Eastern Europe at UCL SSEES: “Transnationalism(s): Contexts, Patterns and Connections in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union”, London – “National minority, transnational life: sociolinguistic change in the Greek community of Himara (Southern Albania)”
• December 2015: Young scholars’ conference, The Institute of
  Anthropology and Ethnography, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow – “There is no Southern Epirus, why should there be Northern?” Production and reception of the discourses on Northern Epirus in the Greek communities of Southern Albania
• March 2015: “Anthropology. Folklore. Sociolinguistics”, European University at Saint-Petersburg – “After diglossia: linguistic repertoire and language use in the Greek minority communities of Northern Epirus (Southern Albania)”
• March 2015: International Philological Conference, St.
  Petersburg State University – “We are more Greek than the Greeks”: construction of group identity and linguistic ideologies in the Greekspeaking communities of Albania
• September 2014: Ditransitive Constructions in a Cross-Linguistic
  Perspective, University of Pavia – Ditransitives in Modern Greek: options and constraints
• April 2014: XVII International conference of studentsphilologists,
  St. Petersburg State University – Pronominal arguments in trivalent predicates in Modern Greek language: options and constraints
• April 2013: International conference of students-philologists,
  St. Petersburg State University – Ditransitive constructions with pronominal arguments in Modern Greek
• April 2012: XV International conference of studentsphilologists,
  St. Petersburg State University – Historical changes in the grammar of Modern Greek language: the case of the first chapter of Grotta-Ferrata and Escorial versions of “Digenes Akrites”

Summer Schools

• Summer School of Modern Greek Language and Culture at the University of Nicosia (2011)
• Summer School of Modern Greek Language and Culture at the University of Athens (2012)
• Summer School of Albanian Language and Culture at the University of Pristina (2012, 2015)
• Summer School of Albanian Language and Culture at the University Tirana (2012, 2015);
• Summer School on linguistics in Salos (2013)
• Konitsa Summer School in Anthropology and Folklore (2014)

Work Experience

• 2009–2017: free-­lance teacher of foreign languages

Involvement in Social Activities

• 2013–2017: Member of Students’ Counsel at the European University at Saint Petersburg

Language Skills

Russian (Mother tongue), English (Proficient), Modern Greek (Proficient), Italian (Intermediate), Albanian (Intermediate), Czech (Basic), Ancient Greek, Latin (Reading with dictionary)