Brown Bag: The Bridge: Materials, Memory and 'Identity'. Between Turkey and Macedonia

Based on ethnographic research carried out in Istanbul and in western Macedonia this paper focuses on materials as polyvocal carriers of the past, and on the ways in which different interpretations of the past are interwoven in the process of self-identification. Following different narratives on the Gorenica Bridge, the paper addresses historical consciousness as a multilayered and complex process shaped by the local and transnational actors and powers. In the post-Ottoman and post-Socialist context, historical narratives and future imaginations are realized through the processes of creation and erasure. But whereas some memories are 'cast in stone' (Sutton, 1998), some people remember beyond the materials. 

Anna Zadrożna is a PhD Candidate in Anthropology at the University of Oslo and works as the University Assistant at the CSEES at the University of Graz. Her current research explores Macedonian-Turkish migration and transnational processes at different levels of institutionalization. Her research interests include memory and 'identity', political anthropology, migration, the Balkans and Turkey. Her writings have been published in book chapters and articles in Nationalities Papers and Anthropological Journal of European Cultures. She was an affiliate visiting researcher at the University College London, the University of Ss. Cyril and Methodius (Skopje), and held a Tübitak-Bideb fellowship at Yeditepe University in Istanbul.