Mind the gap: Attempts to introduce social anthropology in Greece during the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s

The development of social anthropology in Greece is a post-1974 phenomenon related to the modernization of Greek society and academia. 1 The study of others, alongside with the study of „traditional‟ Greek society, from the pre-1960s period is usually attributed to the work of folklorists and historians, an issue well exemplified in the literature 2 . After the fall of the military junta (1974) Greek academia gradually started a modernization process. The three Departments providing undergraduate and graduate programs in social anthropology in Greece were established in Universities where folklore was never taught. Thus, accounts of the development of the discipline in Greece are located in a post-1974 socio-political context 3 or at an earlier stage, the 1960s, when John Peristiany and John Campbell were directing the Athens Centre for Social Research.