Satellite map of Rhodes city

Research Site Manager: Mr Julian Silverman

The Global local Community Sustainability Research project is undertaking research on the island of Rhodes in collaboration with Vasilia Kazoullis of the University of the Aegean. The project engages with local practices in a village and an urban setting through the life world themes of arts and culture, celebration and ritual. The communities of Rhodes City and the village of Asklipios are involved in this study to determine how community members sense of their individual and collective identities, their sense of a shared past and their sense of place within a changing social context. The inclusion of a village and an urban site in this study provides a firm basis for comparative analysis of the strategies that communities are taking to address the challenges facing cultural continuity and development.

Rhodes Island

Located close to the western coast of Turkey, Rhodes is part of the Greek Dodecanesian Island group of which it one of the largest. Its population numbers over 98,000. The old town of Rhodes is perhaps the world's largest medieval town. Its streets today are thronged with package tourists sightseeing between bouts of sunbathing, swimming, eating and drinking, many tourists dance and listen to music late into the night in the island's rich array of bars.

Though the tourists tend to congregate in the rowdy beer barns of 'Tourist Street' in the new City of Rhodes, the bars of the Old City, each with their own particular pop cultural sounds, entertain crowds of local young people. This music provides the sound track to the process of social engagement that makes the Old City seem so alive at night.

For the people of Rhodes City as for villages like Asklepios, music reveals much about how communities both maintain and change their identities, relationships and sense of place and in the present era of globalisation. In Asklepios the last remaining village 'chanters' continue to maintain a local tradition of improvising songs in honour of brides and grooms during the villages' five-day long wedding ceremonies.

Background

Located close to the western coast of Turkey, Rhodes is part of the Greek Dodecanesian Island group of which it one of the largest. Its population numbers over 98,000.

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