ABSTRACT
In this chapter I investigate the ways in which ancient Greek theatres, as material monuments of a glorious culture of the past and as emblems of modern Greek ethnic identity, are re-presented in brochures published by the Greek National Organization of Tourism (GNOT), in order to attract tourists. Modern Greeks externalize aspects of their ethnic identity, and by using these photographs for touristic reasons they understand and define themselves in an international context. The way that the space – ancient monuments and landscape – has been photographed creates the sense of stability and un-changeability of the ancient Greek culture and reinforces its de-historicization. These photographs call (mainly European) tourists to come to Greece to ‘see’ the ‘authentic’ Greek culture, as if no time has intervened from classical antiquity until today. although the ‘meaning’ that can be attributed to these photographs through a visual analysis may be theoretically open-ended, it is also historically and culturally determined. Thus, within the wider context of power relations that exist between Western Europe and its periphery (to which the familiar exotic Greece belongs), the Hellenic state policy on tourism focuses on the exchange of sun and culture capital for economic capital and national profit. These photographs are analysed as self-representations, as visual images of the uniqueness of Greekness that reproduce the local-global dimension of the ancient heritage, a ‘weapon’ that Greeks have in negotiating with more powerful ‘others’.
