Synopsis

What is the position of the Greek migrants in a colonial society such as that of Southern Rhodesia and Tanganyika? Greeks were largely considered Europeans in the 20th century, but they did not have a cultural or political background as colonists in the sense of direct control of territories. On the contrary, in the case of the Greek-speaking populations of the Ionian Islands, Cyprus and the Dodecanese, we can find them as colonized people by the British and the Italians, respectively.
This aspect, combined with the negative views of the British colonists regarding Greeks as settlers, suggests the existence of an instability of whiteness and the ambivalent placement of Greeks within colonialism in Africa. Most of the time, whiteness was situational, depending on Greeks’ local relations with European settlers and other immigrant communities such as Indians as well as indigenous people. Moreover, their class and economic activities defined how the colonial state saw Greek migrants as settlers.

Bio

Fotis Papadopoulos is PhD candidate in the History and Civilization Department of the European University Institute in Florence with thesis title ‘Greek immigrant communities in Southern Rhodesia and Tanganyika: The instability of whiteness and the ambivalent placement of Greek migrants in colonialism, 1890s-1960’.

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