Original scientific paper
Of Gold and Euros. Locating Value on the Greek-Turkish Border (Summary)
Sarah Green
; Social Anthropology, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester, Manchester
Abstract
Some currencies have the capacity to cross borders and to generate both links and separations between peoples and places. For centuries, gold coins had that capacity, and most recently, the Euro was designed to travel across borders without the need for currency conversion. Each, gold coins and the Euro, was linked with very different transnational political and economic conditions, ones that defined what could be called a certain order of things in the world. In the Aegean, gold sovereigns were widely used in the past in trading and in social exchanges within and between families across the Aegean sea, complexly interlinking the different coasts and islands. In the early 20th century, after bitter conflicts between Greek and Turkish armies, relations across the Aegean were disrupted. Relatively recently, Euros have been introduced as a new kind of transnational currency,linking the Greek side of the Aegean with the rest of the EU, while generating complex relations, and separations, with the Turkish coast. This shift from gold to Euros as a transnational currency reflects a series of wider political changes that
have, both literally and metaphorically, altered the shape of Aegean cross-border relations. The paper use ethnographic research on the social implications of that change for the peoples of Mytilene, a coastal town on the Greek island of Lesvos, and their shifting relations with Ayvalik, a coastal town on the Anatolian coast in
Turkey. Focusing on Mytilene people’s understanding of the different values associated with gold sovereigns on the one hand, and Euros on the other, provides a window through which to explore how transnational political and economic changes become involved in people’s everyday lives.
Keywords
money; gold; euro; value; Mytilene; Ayvalik; trade; transnational relations
Hrčak ID:
75301
URI
Publication date:
27.12.2011.
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