ABSTRACT
Using Venezuelan political intellectual, Arturo Uslar-Pietri’s belief that magic realism is a continuation of Latin American avant-garde experimentations with European modernist tendencies, the chapter interrogates how systemic mobilisations of such cosmopolitan projects can contribute to fascistic and populist representations in postmodern contexts of nationalism. Specifically, it is examined how the symbolism of ethno-national heritage (e.g. Greece’s underwater world and islandic architecture) becomes interpellated as a rigorous masculinist project of self-development in the competitive European context of touristification. A detour to Greece’s multiple repressed or commercialised modernities in favour of Europeanisation and Westernisation, allows for a consideration of freediver-artist Kontos’ contribution to the worldmaking powers of Greek institutions, often at the expense of his personal freedom. The chapter will be of interest to political and cultural sociologists, sociologists of culture, social theorists, pragmatic philosophers, tourism studies scholars and cultural geographers.
