The “Brooklidhes”

The “Brooklidhes”

Dr Giota Tourgeli will give an online only lecture entitled "The Brooklidhes: Greek Americans and their communities of origin: Links and transformations (1890-1940)", on Thursday 4 April 2024, at 7 pm. The lecture will be presented online on Facebook and YouTube.

This lecture focuses on the Greek migration to the USA at the turn of the 20th century. It approaches transatlantic movement as an intense circulation of persons (with return flows and repeat crossings) and a broad diffusion of money, goods, ideas, symbols, and information. It puts special emphasis on the ways technology (steamships), the services of this period (post, press and banks), as well as migrants’ networks and self-organization facilitated the communication and connections of the Greek countryside with the mythical and distant American world. It seeks to analyse and highlight the extent to which the economic, social, and cultural remittances of migrants and repatriates transformed life in Greek provinces, as well as local economies in urban centres. Attention will be given to the ambivalent behaviour that Greeks adopted towards the repatriated, as well as to how Greek-Americans negotiated their reintegration into the local communities.

Giota Tourgeli studied history at the University of Athens (Faculty of History and Archaeology) and received a master’s degree from the University of the Peloponnese. She obtained her PhD from the same University with a thesis entitled “Greeks in the USA, Remittances and transformations of local communities in ‘Old Greece’ (1890-1940)”. She has recently completed her postdoctoral research at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences (Faculty of Political Science and History) on “The role of the Asia Minor refugee associations in the resettlement process in Greece (1922-1932). She is a Teaching Associate for postgraduate programs at the School of Social and Political Sciences, University of the Peloponnese. Her main research interests include the history of migration, refugees, diasporas, sending states’ policies and international organizations. She is the author of two books (in greek): The ‘Brooklides’. Greeks in the USA and transformations of local communities, 1890-1940, published by the National Centre for Social Research (EKKE) in 2020 (e-book) and Gateways to America: The Migration economy in Greek port-cities, 1890-1940, published by Crete University Press/ forthcoming in 2024).

Event Details
Date: Thursday 11 April, 7 pm
Platform: Facebook, YouTube