=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-2412/paper10
|storemode=property
|title=Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2412/paper10.pdf
|volume=Vol-2412
|authors=Ilias Tzioras,Manolis Wallace
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/smap/TziorasW19
}}
==Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2412/paper10.pdf
Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli
Ilias Tzioras and Manolis Wallace
ΓΑΒ LAB - Knowledge and Uncertainty Research Laboratory
Department of Informatics and Telecommunications
University of Peloponnese, 22311 Tripolis, Greece
gav@uop.gr
Abstract. Homesickness for the main author’s home town and the capabilities
social media gave me, led to the creation of a Facebook group and a Facebook
page, where we collect rare photographs and record their history and the history
of the people depicted in them. This has now developed in a largescale
crowdsourcing platform for the documentation of local history.
Keywords: Social media, CrowdSourcing, Cultural heritage, Local history.
1 Introduction
Living in the modern technological culture of the 21st century, we daily receive plenty
of stimuli from all over the world. It seems that the world has become a neighbourhood
for all people. However, at the same time, modern human beings appear to be cut off
from their immediate environment. The people, the buildings, the streets that surround
us lose the meaning and the significance that would turn them into memories, reference
points of each one’s identity. The opening up and exposure of human to the endless
time and place of technological culture seems to carry a risk instead of extending their
horizon to the perspective of the global community. Eventually technology is eradicat-
ing the people, destroying their ties with the society around them and isolating them.
Any effort, therefore, to create links with the world that surrounds us, to build com-
munities, to create a memory, cannot be but an effort that contributes positively to the
inherent characteristic of the human as a social being, the creation of culture. Indeed, if
technology itself appears to be something that, at a first level, leads to the breach of the
traditional ties with the world, it is interesting to explore if, at the same time, it can offer
new qualitative perspectives into the shaping of the individual and collective memory.
In this paper, we will attempt to answer the above question through an example, a per-
sonal project “Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli”, which started in
2009 and continues to this day. Homesickness for the main author’s home town and the
capabilities social media gave me, led to the creation of a Facebook group
https://www.facebook.com/groups/GeitoniesAlexandroupolis/ and a Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/AlexandroupoliHistory/, where we collect rare photo-
graphs and record their history and the history of the people depicted in them.
Cultural Informatics 2019, June 9, 2019, Larnaca, Cyprus. Copyright held by the
author(s).
2
The story of a place at this project is conceived as a collage of images. “The picture
does not convey an objective truth, but invites to a fertile encounter. The story becomes
“the object of a composition, whose place is not formed by the uniform and empty time,
but by the time which is full of the presence of now”. Contrary to the close meaning of
coherent historical narratives, the past, through the fragmentation of images remains
open to new interpretations and evaluations, to new meanings, where insignificant can
become important through the active reading of images by as many participants as pos-
sible. This way the past is united with the present and the present acquires a depth and
a meaning.
It is a detailed presentation of events that have happened over time. The views of
Alexandroupoli and the memories of its inhabitants are expressed through personal his-
tories and kept alive through the facebook page and the archive, which is constantly
expanding. This has become possible thanks to the active participation of my compat-
riots located all over the world who send unpublished photos from their family archive,
as well as their testimonies, stories of their ancestors and their own.
The participatory community of the members of the Facebook page has been created
through a large network of volunteers who are involved with the page daily. In addition
to sending photos, they participate in conversations with the other members. They also
make and correct comments or add details to incomplete photo descriptions. Their pur-
pose is to inform and share their knowledge and memories with the rest of the commu-
nity. It seems that everyone’s need for communication has found a way out, to a great
extent, through social networking, as it offers a way of spreading information through
the creation of connections with people with similar interests.
3
Fig. 1. 1946, a group of young people are in front of a house at Apolloniada district of Alexan-
droupoli. In the photo from the archive of Mr. George Kanellos, we read the comments of other
members who identified their relatives but also the location of the house in the city of Alexan-
droupoli.
With the help of the internet, thousands of members of a social network like Face-
book, looked for their origins, their interests, their history, their city, their school, and
many other personal references. These personal references, though, happen to be com-
mon and shared with a large number of other users who have looked for their cultural
heritage and found it in the “Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli” page.
At the same time, members have a double role. They are both the creators of the cultural
commodity which is produced within the page, but also its consumers. They are no
longer just recipients of cultural information but active citizens who are involved in the
saving of their history and culture and they gain great satisfaction from it.
2 Crowdsourcing procedure
The procedure with these kinds of features is in fact a Crowdsourcing application for
the development of cultural heritage, where at the same time members meet their per-
sonal need for social interaction and reconnection with other users of social networks
united by their place of origin, their love for history and folklore.
Crowdsourcing is an open invitation that appeals to and attracts a multitude of people
to contribute to the implementation of a project. The real word appears, for the first
time, in 2006, by the writer and journalist Jeff Howe in an article in Wired magazine,
entitled “The growth of Crowdsourcing”. It describes a new way of involving people
who want to help or work on a project and offer their time and effort at a low price, or
even for free.
“Designing a crowdsourcing project plays a prominent role by engaging the public
and triggering its interest”. In this way, the “Neighbourhoods and Memories of Ale-
xandroupoli” page urges its members to open their long-forgotten photographic ar-
chives and digitize them. This results in bringing the generations closer, since the dig-
itization of the material is usually undertaken by the younger members of a family who,
at the same time, learn their family history. The collective memory is also the collective
power of people in this continuous development of new content. They produce a new
cultural object, as they convert old photographic material or old documents into a digital
form, which can be recorded and imparted to the younger generations. They, in turn,
through the interaction with the older generations, are really getting acquainted with
their family origin, but also with the historical facts they were unaware of. Through this
interaction, the historical and cultural continuity between generations of the past, the
present and the future, is secured and the sustainable development through culture is
achieved.
4
Thus, they create stronger ties and, at the same time, manage to increase the value
of the cultural product which is collected through their specific actions, such as “tag-
ging, geo-location, collection, and classification and co-curation. The capitalization of
the crowd wisdom is linked with the motives which trigger it”.
The successful mobilization and motivation of the members has resulted in the cre-
ation of an electronic repository which is now a digital timeline extending from the late
19th century until recently. Furthermore, through the site-based information manage-
ment and their time and participation in the page, users increase their social networking.
Friends, classmates, relatives, fellow citizens are socially reconnected, both at the Fa-
cebook page and offline.
The lives of their ancestors and the lives of the members of this community who
send the material are constantly crossed at many points over the decades. This is a nat-
ural consequence of the development of friendships, marriages, same jobs or education,
and other shared experiences, even though they come from different social starting
points. The same happens with their memories too and the photos of their lives and the
genealogical trees of Alexandroupoli.
3 Results and statistics
Currently, the Facebook page and the Facebook group “Neighbourhoods and Memories
of Alexandroupoli” have 15,000 and 19,000 active members, respectively. The photo-
graphic repository includes 12,000 photos and documents in digital format. All partic-
ipants’ memories complement each other’s and co-record the history of the city.
The historical memory is a process of selecting what will be saved and what will be
left in oblivion, not just an automatic process of preserving the past and storing infor-
mation. Therefore, memory, as a selection process, entails the social factor. Who deter-
mines what will be left in oblivion and what will be saved? Usually, this process is left
to the experts, such as the historians or the dominant group of the time, such as the
government and its policies. More often than not, the process is left to chance.On the
contrary, in the case of the project we are studying, a new process of collective memory
construction, based on the democratic principles emerges. Through the active partici-
pation of all in the process of shaping the collective memory, a public space that freely
allows and encourages the expression of everyone’s opinion, without exclusions, is
formed. It is not just about free access for all to what has already been saved, but their
active participation in the construction of the collective memory. Social media seem to
be a privileged environment for the creation of such spaces.
The purpose of the project “Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli” is
to preserve and shape the collective memory of the city of Alexandroupoli and Thrace,
which consists of all the memories shared by its citizens and those who come from there
but no longer live in the city. “Boyer considers that the whole city can be seen as a
form of collective memory. Consequently, the city, as a place, is an exhibition of events
that have happened through time, while its aspects are expressed through personal
memories and narrations. Lately, several researches have been done on what Crinson
calls an urban memory.
5
Fig. 2. Statistics on number of members and the comments added on a daily basis.
The memory of a city, according to Postalcy et al. is a “kind of collective memory
formed by the experiences of individuals at the particular place through its history and
social environment”. With the help of the social networks and the great possibilities
they offer, personal memories can be recorded, preserved and transmitted to the
younger generations which by interacting with each other, with older generations and
with place, they will shape the collective memory of the city, their home country, their
place of origin. Personal memories pass from generation to generation through narra-
tives and testimonies of important events that happened in the past. The changes in the
urban environment (buildings, roads, parks), which is a point of reference for them, are
also being recorded. One can also observe the evolution of the professions, technology,
living conditions, of families themselves, of regimes over the decades.
In Europe, cultural and creative industries have been some of the most dynamic sec-
tors in recent years. They are considered as a “catalyst for innovative developments in
the industry and the service sector” and therefore “occupy an important place in the
6
Europe 2020 strategy, since they contribute to a new type of growth” , strengthening
the EU’s international competitiveness and promoting its knowledge and cultural di-
versity. They are closely linked to education and training, and their dynamic develop-
ment is reflected not only in the economic, but in the social development as well. It is
said that “Culture can contribute to inclusive growth through the promotion of the in-
tercultural dialogue, with full respect for the cultural identity” .
Fig. 3. August 20, 1953 at Patriotic Institute for Social Welfare and Understanding (PIKPA) in
Alexandroupoli. Awards are given to the Healthiest Babies of the City by Mayor Betsios and
Doctor Rachmanidis. Evangelos Mammos, a musician today, 16 months old is in the arms of his
mother Olga Mammou. Next to them George Bacharoudis, a cardiologist today is in the arms of
his own mother. The photo was sent to the page by Ms Maria Mammou. Right beside we can
read the comments of other members who identified their relatives
The “Neighbourhoods and Memories of Alexandroupoli” page is an open platform
that strengthens this social cohesion and social development. It acts as a mediation tool
that allows its members to participate fully and creatively in a collective effort with
continuous, daily action. This contact and the enjoyment they find in it, results in ac-
quiring new knowledge and, at the same time, in increasing their self-confidence and
pride in their contribution and their roots. The most important thing that is cultivated is
the conscientiousness and the special emphasis that is given to the correct documenta-
tion and classification of the photos and the rest of the archive, which grows daily.
Our digitized cultural and historical heritage can be the raw material for a continu-
ous, long-term production of cultural goods, as well as interactive history lessons. This
is achieved through the use of the good practices found in social networks and new
technologies which are popular among young people. In this way, young people, to-
gether with their creative, participatory education, will also have a basis to start observ-
ing everything that is around them. However, a starting point for any individual and
7
collective action cannot be but what lies near us. Thus, we will be able to connect hu-
man with place and time.
4 Conclusions and outlook
What started as a small Facebook page has developed into a large-scale crowdsourcing
platform for the documentation of local history. We now find ourselves managing a
group of more than 16000 active users, jointly working towards salvaging the history
of Alexandroupoli.
At the same time, we have the opportunity to observe in practice how theoretical
estimations about the efficiency of such approaches and the internal dynamics of such
groups, produce methodologies and good practice documents and examine
how/whether this can be transferred to other places and form the basis for a broader
effort to salvage local community history.
References
1. Benjamin Walter, Theses on the Philosophy of History,- Surrealism - The Image of Proust,
(translated) Paraschis Minas, Utopia publishing, Athens (1983).
2. Howe, J. The Rise of Crowdsourcing. www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.06/crowds.html
Wired (2006).
3. Noordegraaf, J., Bartholomew, A. & Eveleigh, A. Modelling crowdsourcing for Cultural
Heritage, http://mw2014.museumsandtheweb.com/paper/modeling-crowdsourcing-for-cul-
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crowdsourcing, http://oro.open.ac.uk/39117/2/cura_12046.pdf (2013).
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