Family and economic life in a Greek Island community

Kenna, Margaret E.

essay

Family and economic life in a Greek Island community

family, economy and community • Cardiff • Published In 1990 • Pages: 143-163

By: Kenna, Margaret E..

Abstract
This paper presents an account of the family-based economy of the Greek island of Nisos, based on the author's fieldwork on the island from 1966-1967, and again from 1987-1988. During the earlier period of her fieldwork Kenna dealt mainly with the relationship between the pattern of naming children, the division of the parental estate between sons and daughters, and the obligations of the heirs to carry out a set of rituals for the souls of those from whom they received property. The later fieldwork period '…focused on the changing relationship between island residents and migrants from the island settled in the suburbs of Athens, to which islanders had been migrating seasonally and permantently for over 140 years. Despite major differences in the orientations of these two pieces of research, the themes of family obligation, property and making a living, ran through both and facilitate an instructive comparison between the meagre subsistence-base economy of the sixties and the fledgling cash-base economy of the eighties. The comparison emphasizes some features in contrast … but also stresses the continuity of other practices' (p. 143).

Internal migration

Acculturation and culture contact

Production and supply

Labor and leisure

Labor supply and employment

Household

Greeks