"Tradition and Modernity": Kalymnian Constructions of Identity and Otherness

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Abstract
Throughout the world people employ the terms "modernity" and "tradition" (or local glosses) to describe the relationship between the West and the non-West. Yet the simple equation of the West with modernity and the non-West with tradition hides the complex discourses people use in constructing group identities as they place their societies in the world system. In particular it obscures the multiple national/international intersections of these discourses and their role in objectifying culture in ways that promote change. The inhabitants of the Dodecanese island of Kalymnos draw on a plethora of "others" in discussing the traits which, they believe, epitomize their own "culture" and "identity." The positive and negative valuations that Kalymnians give to these "others" suggest the different ways they face the dilemmas of "modernity" and transcend any simple division of Greek identity between "East"and "West."

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