Threat and Defence: Diaspora and the Creation of Ethnoscapes

Drawing from Manuel Castells’ assertion that in a network society “a logic of flows has replaced a logic of structures”; this paper examines the (re) formation of the idea of national space and national identity in relation to the socio-cultural phenomenon of Diaspora of Kazakhstani and Albanians in Greece as depicted in the films of Constantine Giannaris (“At the Edge of the City”; “Hostage”). Giannaris’ cinema is analysed through the Deleuzian concept of the “assemblage”; which denies the existence of two (or three; or…) distinctive components of cultural interaction and at the same time acknowledges the multiple intermediate components of a dialogue between “host” and “visitor” where youth subcultures; sexuality; public transport and working environments constitute a volatile and instable ethnoscape best described in terms of deterritorilisation and reterritorilisation. How does the ethnoscape constitute a threat to traditional notions of national space and identity? What are the defence mechanisms of these traditional notions within the ethnoscape?