Crossing Cultures through the Intangible Heritage: an Educational Programme about Migration in Greece

Abstract

This paper presents the preliminary results of a researchprogramme on the social and cultural impact of migrationinto Greece conducted on the Greek island of Skiathos. Theprogramme involved educational activities which werebased on the collection and analysis of oral material. Aschool class of eleven years old students, both native andimmigrants, was asked to search into their family historyand bring to light heirlooms and related narrations whichrepresented oral traditions in their countries. In a firstphase of the project the artifacts and the accompanying oralmaterial were used as stimuli for discussion between nativeand immigrant children in the class. Subsequently, thecollected tangible and intangible material was displayed ina temporary museum exhibition entitled ‘With a suitcasefull of dreams’. The perceptions which all the groups ofchildren, participants and visitors, native and immigrantshad about migration before and after the educationalprogram were recorded and analyzed in relation to theimpact of the oral traditions on them. The results of thestudy are discussed with respect to the new communicativerole which institutions of formal and informal learning couldundertake due to the multiple use of intangible heritage inthe approach of subtle social subjects such as migration. Among the most important findings was the fact thatchildren who took part in the project and visited theexhibition realized that through discovering other people’sculture they could develop their knowledge of unknownaspects of their own culture and history.