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Diasporic Heritage in Plural: Objects from ‘Home’ at the Greek Egyptian Associations in Athens

Eftychia Mylona & Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou

In 1933, the Greeks from Egypt and Sudan (Σύλλογος των εξ Αιγύπτου και Σουδάν Ελλήνων) founded their association in Athens. From its early years, the association collected objects from Egypt, and eventually became a custodian of memorabilia (photographs, documents, athletic trophies) of the once-flourishing Greek communities in the country. Over time, and as the collection expanded, its premises were transformed into a place of curated memory; entire walls are now covered with showcases, with separate compartments dedicated to a specific community in Egypt (Fig. 1). Within each, contents are carefully arranged to highlight historical transitions and cultural resilience:  in the background, photographs that depict athletic activities and Greek clubs in Egypt serve as symbolic foundations of the contemporary diasporic identity. As the visitor’s gaze shifts to the foreground, it captures more recent memorabilia, which stand as links between past and present, and indicators of a persistent social milieu that resisted displacement.

Fig. 1. Permanent display of sports memorabilia from the Port-Said and Port-Tawfiq communities at the premises of the Association of Greeks from Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, September 2024.

Following Timothy Mitchell’s conceptualisation of the exhibition as a symbolic space that (re)produces meaning and stereotypes within the collective imaginary (Mitchell, 1988), photographs and sports memorabilia are here examined as constitutive elements of an ad hoc sociocultural setting that conveys the prevailing narrative of the Greek communities in Egypt.

In February 2024, the Athletic Association of Greeks from Egypt (Αθλητικός Σύλλογος Αιγυπτιωτών Ελλήνων – ΑΣΑΕ) and the Association of Greeks from Port Said and Port Fuad organised an exhibition dedicated to the communal life of Greeks in the cities of the Suez Canal. Well before its opening, a series of social media posts advertised the exhibition as an opportunity for Greeks who had spent their childhood in the region to reunite and rekindle nostalgic memories—particularly memories related to their involvement in athletic clubs and participation in sporting events. This nostalgic framing extended into the event itself: in his opening speech, the president of the association introduced the interpretive lens through which visitors were invited to experience the exhibition: its purpose, he stated, was to “showcase the vitality of the Greek community in the past, in cities that are now in the hands of the Egyptians.”

Indeed, as the visitors walked past the displays, the room filled with nostalgic sighs, enthusiastic exclamations, recalling of names, and narratives from childhoods once lived in Egypt. Clearly, the event fulfilled its aim: by placing together and carefully arranging objects invested with symbolic meaning, it turned realia into a “lieu de mémoire” (Nora, 1989) that, beyond its material substance, stands as a container of the community’s collective memory — which, in turn, serves as a common denominator of the community’s persistent and distinct identity (Fig. 2).

Fig. 2. A glimpse into the exhibition celebrating the athletic performance of Greeks in Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, February 2024

The exhibition adheres to a symbolic pattern of rendering space into a heterotopic representation of the, by now shuttered, Greek communal space in Egypt. The lounge of the Association of Greeks from Egypt (Σύνδεσμος Αιγυπτιωτών Ελλήνων – ΣΑΕ) —where Greek objects from Egypt and Egyptian handcrafted objects have been carefully arranged together — stands as another example of the imaginary reconstruction of ‘home’.

Much like in temporary exhibitions, sports memorabilia displayed across two walls of the large hall serve as identifiers of a long-standing tradition—one that first emerged ‘at home’ and continues in Greece. They demarcate material identities and the ways in which Greeks conceptualise and perform their post-diasporic heritage after their departure from Egypt (Fig. 3).

Fig 3. Showcases from the permanent display of sports memorabilia at the premises of the Association of Greeks from Egypt. Photo: Irakleitos Souyioultzoglou, September 2024

Sports constitute a symbolic space where discourses on nationhood and cultural identities intersect (Lichtenstein, 2015). For the Greeks in Egypt, such activities encompassed collective conceptualisations that defined the essence and the boundaries of Greekness in diaspora. Sports (along with other communal activities, such as scouting and school excursions) aimed to reinforce community bonds, played a central role in sustaining a distinct “Greek identity” (Ελληνική Κοινότητα Αλεξανδρείας, Λογοδοσία έτους 1965, 25-26), and became part of a strategy to counter the gradual “egyptianisation” of social life and the subsequent fear of assimilation.

The first sports clubs in Egypt emerged in the early 20th century (Jacob, 2011). The Egyptian Yacht Club in Alexandria was established in 1901, followed by the creation of the Egyptian Athletic Federation in 1910. Around the same time, Greeks began forming their own associations: the Nautical Club of Alexandria (1909), and later those in Cairo and Port Said (1927). The Greek Athletic Associations of Port Fuad (1932) and Port Said (1949) developed a strong presence in football and basketball, enriching the community’s sporting life.

The establishment of athletic clubs was considered as a critical step towards communal coherence, and was strongly supported by the community leadership. Accordingly, athletic successes were interpreted as a proof of the community’s vitality and evidence of virtues supposedly embedded in the community itself—discipline, dedication, and persistence in the face of hardship. Thus, sports memorabilia substantiated metaphors of moral and physical strength. The abolition of Capitulations (1937) and, subsequently, the 1956 Suez Canal Crisis and the Arab–Israeli wars, placed foreign communities under a legal and social framework that stripped away their privileged status and gradually led to their displacement. After most Greeks left Egypt, sports memorabilia, as prominent symbols of achievement, were transported to Athens and housed in the associations they established there—the most prominent being the Hellenic Nautical Club of Greeks from Egypt (Ελληνικός Ναυτικός Όμιλος Αιγυπτιωτών – ΕΝΟΑ), and the Association of Greeks from Egypt.

As Anna Pechurina (2020, 67) observes, in the context of migration, objects play a vital role in (re)constructing and (re)inventing the feeling of being at home. Once removed from their original setting, use, and ownership, these so-called “diasporic objects” take on new layers of meaning and significance as they are re-situated within different social spaces. Therefore, sports memorabilia, as “victorious objects,” embody migrants’ connections to their communal heritage and distant homeland. They serve both as reminders of physical separation from these places and experiences (Pechurina), and as material instantiations of collective belonging that symbolically reproduce a sense of “home.”

In the sports clubs and associations founded in Greece, former athletes assumed new roles as trainers for younger generations, and new victories soon followed. Trophies and medals were conveniently placed and proudly displayed alongside those transported from Egypt. Their display constitutes a performative act of continuity, and reconstitutes communal life in a different social setting. These objects publicly affirm that the values and shared memories of the community were re-embedded in a new environment.

The replacement of diasporic objects into a new social setting and their blending with objects that do not share the same territorial or historical origin, contributes to the symbolic construction of a new “home,” through the creation of fresh layers of memory. By evoking collective memories and materialising a longstanding tradition of communal activities, the memorabilia stand as reminders of practices that forged a sense of belonging and a shared ethnic/social identity — recognisable both within and outside the boundaries of the community of Greeks from Egypt.

References

William C. Jacob, Working Out Egypt: Effendi Masculinity and Subject Formation in Colonial Modernity, 1870–1940, Cairo: AUC, 2011.

Tatjana Lichtenstein, “‘An Athlete Like a Soldier Must Not Retreat’: Zionists, Sport, and Belonging in Interwar Czechoslovakia.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 34, no. 1, 2015, p. 1-26

Timothy Mitchell,Colonizing Egypt. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988

Pierre Nora, “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire,” Representations, no. 26, Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory, 1989, p.7-24.

Anna Pechurina. “Researching identities through material possessions: The case of diasporic objects,”  Current Sociology 68, no. 5, 2020, p. 669–683.

Ελληνική Κοινότητα Αλεξανδρείας. Λογοδοσία Έτους 1965. ELIA Archive.

The Circulation of Pasta Machines Across the Early 20th Century Mediterranean

Abel Solans

On November 18, 1911, the Italian embassy in Cairo informed the Ministry of Interior that Giuseppe Serracchioli had arrived in Alexandria from Marseille with a machine for making pasta. Serracchioli, a sailor born near Bologna in 1872, had settled in Egypt in 1902. He was known and monitored for his anarchist and revolutionary ideas. The Egyptian police were interested in this pasta machine and alerted the Italian consulate because, according to their information, it concealed a machine gun. Serracchioli was likely aware that transporting such a machine would not arouse suspicion. Indeed, there was a significant Italian community in Egypt, which as evidenced by numerous advertisements in Italian-language newspapers (Fig. 1), consumed both imported from Italy and locally produced pasta.

Nachson Pasta in Cairo

Capecchi. pasta

 

 

 

 

Fig. 1 Advertisements for imported and local pasta in Egypt, L’Imparziale, July 18th 1892.

The circulation of pasta machines to the southern Mediterranean did not only concern Egypt; it was probably even more significant in Tunisia, where, at the beginning of the 20th century, more than 80,000 Italian nationals resided (Finzi 2003). In Tunis, pasta was among the most consumed products by the Italian community. In 1908, an average of 15,000 kilograms was produced daily. That same year, there were 44 pasta manufacturers in Tunis employing more than 80 workers. These establishments were equipped with various machines necessary for production, including kneaders, and, especially, presses that shaped spaghetti, macaroni, and other forms. In Tunisia, all the owners of these establishments, as well as the workers, were Italian men. These businesses operated as small, family-owned workshops, each employing only a few workers (Fig. 2). The lower-paid workers, earning 2.75 francs in 1908, carried out the most physically demanding tasks. They started work at 5pm and for 15 hours prepared and kneaded dough made from durum wheat semolina and water. More skilled workers then pressed the dough into various shapes, after which it was cut and dried.

Fig. 2 Usine de pâtes alimentaires, Tunis (Camera di Commercio italiana di Tunisi, Gli Italiani nella Tunisia, Tunis, 1906, p. 36).

Fig. 2. Usine de pâtes alimentaires, Tunis  (Camera di Commercio italiana di Tunisi, Gli Italiani nella Tunisia, Tunis, 1906, p. 36).

Pasta quickly became a symbol of Italian identity. As in most Italian migration centers, its production and consumption were closely associated with members of the Italian community, regardless of their regional and social origins. While in Italy, pasta consumption was mostly limited to urban populations, particularly in the South, in Tunisia, it became the staple food of the Italian working class. For some Italians, pasta consumption only became a habit after settling in Tunisia, where they also developed a stronger sense of national identity. The presence of pasta machines in the southern Mediterranean helped make this food a marker of national identity, thus fostering a form of “everyday nationhood” (Fox & Miller-Idriss 2008).

Unlike in the United States, where pasta imports were more significant than local production until the end of World War I, this was not the case in the southern Mediterranean. The presence of workshops equipped with pasta-making machines and the volume of production in Tunisia suggest that imported pasta constituted only a minor portion of local consumption. While Italy exported food products to migrant communities as a source of foreign currency, this was probably not the case for pasta in Tunisia. Indeed, the trade in Italian-made food products played a key role in maintaining ties between migrants and their homeland, while reinforcing the Italian government’s influence over its emigrants. The significant Italian emigration and the expectation that migrants would defend Italian interests abroad formed the foundation of Italian particular colonialism in Tunisia and Egypt (Viscomi 2024). In Tunisia, the proximity and supervision of the Italian community likely reduced the need for commercial ties to sustain migrants’ attachment to their homeland (Montalbano 2023). Another reason pasta was not only imported from Italy is that, unlike the United States and France, which grew soft wheat for flour production, Tunisia had the necessary raw material for making dry pasta: durum wheat semolina, the same used for couscous.

The link between pasta production and Italian identity became clear in 1911 during the Italian invasion of Tripolitania. A campaign to boycott Italian products led to a 30% drop in pasta sales highlighting the extent to which Arabic-speaking populations regularly consumed this food. Indeed, newspapers like Al-Mouchīr expressed concern over the fact that pasta was the only sector in which native Tunisians could not replace Italian labor.

Pasta machines also played a role in the early struggles of the trade union movement in Tunisia. In 1908, pasta workers in Tunis went on strike, demanding either a wage increase or a reduction in the price of a kilogram of pasta, which had risen from 0.45 to 0.50 francs. Machines, likely presses such as the one shown in the photo (Fig. 2), proved to be an important element in negotiations between workers and employers. The cost of rental of these machines was one of the main arguments put forward by employers to justify the price increase. Giuseppe Natoli, an anarchist leader of the Italian labor movement in Tunisia, encouraged workers to form a cooperative that would allow them to resume work and sell pasta at 0.45 francs per kilogram. This cooperative was created a few days later as soon as workers managed to rent the necessary equipment.

Pasta machines most likely originated from Italy, though the example of Serracchioli shows that they could also be bought in France (Fig. 3). As in the United States, pasta producers in France sought to expand their market beyond the Italian community. To do so, they emphasized more mechanized and hygienic production, distancing themselves from the image of Italian producers who dried their pasta outdoors, with little regard for sanitary concerns (Cinotto 2013). It is unclear whether this trend extended to the southern Mediterranean. However, if it did, the fact that the machine Serracchioli brought came from France may have served as a selling point.

Advertisement for the pasta manufacturer Scapini, 1900.

Fig. 3. Advertisement for the pasta manufacturer Scapini, 1900. (Musée national de l’histoire et des cultures de l’immigration).

However, did Giuseppe Serracchioli really intend to produce pasta? Probably not. Despite carrying a weapon, he was not arrested in Egypt, as he immediately left for Muhammarah, an emirate at the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates. According to informants from the Italian consulate, Sheikh Khaz’al, the Emir of Muhammarah, had tasked Serracchioli with bringing machines from Europe for making explosives and bombs. Yet, no mention of such machines is made in the surveillance reports. Could the pasta machine have been repurposed for producing explosives?

One could speculate that a kneader might have been used to mix explosive dough or that a press could have shaped them into cartridges. But it is also possible that the device was not a pasta machine at all, and the Egyptian surveillance authorities inferred its function from the nationality of the person transporting it. In any case, the arms smuggling was successful. By 1915, French intelligence reported that, Serracchioli continued trafficking arms in the Bassora region and the Persian Gulf. His connection to typically Italian machinery did not end there: in the 1920s, he was in Paris and became the general representative of the “Percolateur Express” coffee machine brand. Through this business and his employees, he gathered information on the anti-fascist movement, which he passed on to the Italian authorities.

Following Tunisia’s independence, many Italians emigrated, leading to the disappearance of several pasta workshops. Those that remained became associated, in the memory of Tunisians, with artisanal pasta production (Fig. 4).

Gandolfo pasta in Tunisia

Fig. 4. Poster from the 1960s. Gandolfo pasta was produced in Tunisia until the late 1990s. There have been two Italian pasta manufacturers named Gandolfo since 1886.

Industrial production, meanwhile, was carried out by Tunisian companies. To our knowledge, the first workshop founded by a Tunisian, Habib Mellouli, in partnership with an Italian, was in 1943 in Sousse. The Mellouli Pasta Company, which later became Épi d’Or, mechanized its operations and, by 1990, produced 100 tons of pasta per day. Traditional machines, therefore, remain strongly linked in the collective imagination to Italian craftsmanship, symbolizing both Italian colonization and a broader cultural exchange.

References

Simone Cinotto, The Italian American Table: Food, Family, and Community in New York City. Champaign, United States : University of Illinois Press. 2013.

Silvia Finzi, Mestieri e professioni degli Italiani di Tunisia. Tunis : Ambasciata Italiana di Tunisi. 2003.

J. E. Fox & C. Miller-Idriss, “Everyday nationhood,” Ethnicities 8, no. 4, 2008, p. 536–563.

Gabriele Montalbano, Les Italiens de Tunisie : La construction d’une communauté entre migrations, colonisations et colonialismes (1896-1918). Rome : Publications de l’École française de Rome. 2023.

Joseph John Viscomi, Migration at the End of Empire: Time and the Politics of Departure between Italy and Egypt. Cambridge : Cambridge University Press. 2024.

 

 

 

The American Trunk and the Return Journey of Greek Migrants in the Early 20th Century

Giota Tourgeli

The travel trunk emerged as a powerful symbol of transatlantic migration at the turn of the twentieth century. Among the more than 400,000 Greeks who immigrated to the United States by the 1920s – many intending only temporary sojourn – the trunk became a preeminent material object associated to their eventual return to the homeland. Notably, approximately 40% of these migrants returned to Greece, often carrying trunks that symbolized the material benefits accrued through their mobility. Unlike suitcases, which primarily facilitated the transport of their essential belongings (Fig. 1), the trunk served as a protective container for a diverse range of objects accumulated over time. These items addressed personal needs and were often intended as gifts for family members, functioning as a kind of remittance. The ritual of packing and unpacking these trunks reaffirmed enduring familial and communal bonds, offering symbolic compensation for prolonged physical absence.

Fig. 1. Anonymous, Ready to return for Balkan War, c. 1912. (The Library of Congress, Bain News Service). About 40,000 Greek migrants returned to Greece during the Balkan Wars. They travelled “light”, planning to defend their country and then come back to the United States.

Undoubtedly, the American trunk represented more than a mere travel item; it was a material marker of the migrant’s metamorphosis. The transformation was first signaled by the migrant’s return as a second-class – if not first-class – passenger on an ocean liner. Secondly, it was reflected in the quality and quantity of his baggage and, by extension, in the nature of the goods he carried. Greek peasants, who initially departed as steerage passengers, transported their modest possessions in baskets, betel bags, cloth bundles or, at best, in inexpensive cardboard suitcases purchased in port markets. The objects included their first “European” costume, a blanket, a migrant guide and some dry food for the trip.

In contrast, upon their return, migrants often arrived with multiple elegant suitcases and steamer trunks, filled with carefully selected items chosen for their utility, emotional value or the prestige they provided. Some of these were everyday objects –often second-hand, acquired in the workplace– that nonetheless seemed fabulous within the context of rural Greek communities. These included fashionable clothing, textiles and linens, agricultural tools, kitchen utensils, and popular books from Greek-American publishers. Particularly impressive were Western industrial goods and technological innovations –many purchased with installment plans– such as toys, clocks, firearms and musical instruments, gramophones and records. The contents of these overloaded trunks testified to the migrants’ economic power, and the material lifestyle fostered by their mobility. They also skillfully concealed the frugality and hardships they had endured to acquire such items. The presentation of these goods served to craft a narrative of success, masking the difficult realities of migrant life abroad.

Long-distance travel across borders imbued trunks with significant symbolic value, marking them as special objects. The colorful travel stickers – bearing the logos of the railroad and steamship companies – not only charted the long journey but also attested that they had come from elsewhere. These stickers narrated aspects of the complex bureaucratic process encountered while travelling. The carriage of the baggage to the port of New York, its disinfection and loading onto liners, customs clearance at the ports of Patras and Piraeus, transshipment via domestic steamers, transportation to mountain villages, and final delivery to migrants’ families depended upon a dense transnational logistical network consisting of travel agents, boatmen, porters, carters and muleteers. However, this transnational journey was shaped not only by the organized services and economic interests of transport entrepreneurs but also by the opportunistic activities of petty crooks and bandit gangs. The large, heavy trunks – emblems of distance and perceived wealth – contributed to the reputation of returning migrants as affluent men. Consequently, these migrants and their families often became targets of attacks in port zone, along transit zones, and even in their own homes.

The migrant trunk, as a container of exotic commodities, promoted the “American Dream” itself and contributed to the emergence of a migration culture. It served as a condensed representation of the “American world” and provided tangible evidence of the economic disparity between life “abroad” and “at home.” The baggage, often transported on mules, sent messages of conspicuous consumption, making the migrant’s homecoming triumphant. The size, weight, sturdiness and decorative elements of the trunk impressed all those gathered in the communities of origin to welcome the migrant, whereas the metallic lock further ignited curiosity and speculation about its valuable contents. The ritualized opening of the trunk and the distribution of its objects to family and friends had a profound impact on the mental mobility of young people in particular. Objects enclosed within disseminated images of wealth, fashion and Western modernity, shaping local perceptions of life in the United States. These objects inspired aspirations and reinforced the desire among many to pursue their fortunes abroad, thereby contributing to the perpetuation of migration flows.

Upon delivery, the American trunk was transformed from a travel object and personal possession into a valued family asset. Although its physical journey had ended, its symbolic biography continued to evolve. Like many other migration objects travelling to the Greek provinces, the trunk’s afterlife acquired new layers of meaning. Imbued with the glamour of the golden land, it was regarded as an extraordinary object and prominently displayed in the main room of houses built with the American earnings. It stood alongside other prized possessions brought from America – such as the gramophone and the Singer sewing machine. Much more than a decorative element, it attested to the family’s migration history and rising social status. The inscriptions it bore, with the owner’s name and the American manufacturing company, alluded to an exclusivity, enhancing the symbolic capital of its owners. As an object of distinction, the trunk served to connect the migrant family’s past to its envisioned future, reinforcing its elevated status within the local community.

However, in the materially impoverished setting of the Greek countryside, the trunk’s functional role persisted. As one of the few substantial furnishings in a peasant household, it was repurposed for the storage of dowry clothing or to conceal valuable family possessions. Even the sturdy ropes that had bound it during its transatlantic journey found new utility in agricultural work. These practical adaptations contributed to the trunk’s preservation, safeguarding it from decay. Over time, many trunks underwent further transformations (Fig. 2).

American trunk

Fig. 2. American trunks exhibited at the local folklore museum in Stefani in eastern Corinthia (Peloponnese, Greece). Curated by the Educational and Cultural Association of Stefani. Photographs by the author.

 

 

Retrieved from attics and cellars – if not ending up in antique stores – they were reappropriated as mnemonic objects by later generations and local heritage associations. Regaining a prominent place in the home as family heirlooms, or featured as central exhibits in local heritage museums, these trunks became tangible links to the past. Alongside migrants’ photographs and records from the Ellis Island passenger database, they document the “American past” of the Greek countryside  serving as enduring witnesses to a complex history of migration and cultural memory.

Further reading

Paul Basu and Simon Coleman, “Introduction: migrant worlds, material cultures,” Mobilities 3, no. 3, 2008, p. 313-330.

Hans Peter Hahn and Hadas Weis, “Introduction: biographies, travels and itineraries of things,” in Hans Peter Hahn and Hadas Weis (eds.), Mobility, meaning and transformations of things: Shifting contexts of material culture through time and space, Oxford and Oakville: Oxbow Books, 2013, p.1-14.

Igor Kopytoff, “The cultural biography of things: Commoditization as process,” in Arjun Appadurai (ed.), The social life of things: Commodities in cultural perspective, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1986, p. 64-92.

Giota Tourgeli, Οι Μπρούκληδες. Έλληνες Μετανάστες στην Αμερική και Μετασχηματισμοί στις Κοινότητες Καταγωγής 1890-1940 [The Brooklidhes: Greek immigrants in the United States and the transformations of origin communities, 1890-1940], Athens: National Centre for Social Research (EKKE), 2020 (e-book).

The Transformative Journey of the Fourgon

Eirini Chryssocheri

Within the migration process, the fate of objects plays a central role, shaping a narrative of historical significance and profound meanings. In examining the role of domestic material culture in the migratory journey of Greeks who set out from Egypt to Greece in the early 1960s, the focus goes beyond the objects they transported, to capture the transformative power inherent in the containers they used to move their belongings from one country to another. The narratives of these migrants illustrate how home — in its material form and as a metaphor — can change meanings during migration.

In the early 1960s, as Greeks prepared to leave Egypt, they were granted permission to transport their household goods to Greece—a critical occasion marked by the formal declaration of their final departure (information provided from an interviewee). The choice of objects they had to take or leave behind reflected their values and priorities and symbolized the transformation they would undergo during their journey. For the Greeks from Egypt, this choice was also dictated by the practical issue of space, as the houses, at least of the upper- and middle-class families in Egypt, were larger and more spacious than their new homes in Greece.

Figure 1. Anonymous photographer, Fourgons in Athens ready for their final destination, circa 1950, Beinoglou private collection. 

Families wishing to leave Egypt sought help in organizing the transport of their possessions, which usually took place in the late hours of the night. Furniture and other items were taken to the street and loaded onto carts destined for a specific location, where everything was carefully packed with straw, sacks and sturdy ropes and got prepared for transportation. In Egypt at that time, household possessions were shipped in special containers, namely room-sized wooden boxes of various sizes, which the Greeks referred to by the French term fourgon (Figure 1). Those containers held a profound significance for those leaving Egypt as they represented the primary means for safely carrying their belongings.

The physical transfer of their possessions, as their households made their way from Egypt to Greece, marked the beginning of a complex and multidimensional process. Upon reaching Greece, the wooden containers found themselves in the hands of local carriers, responsible for distributing and placing the possessions within the migrants’ new homes. After reaching their final destination, the containers commonly met one of two fates: either being discarded, especially if damaged, or being offered to the transportation company in Greece.

The migration journey of the Greeks from Egypt, as reflected in their domestic material culture, provides deep insights into the complexities of carrying one’s sense of home across borders. While the act of leaving their former homes in Egypt was undoubtedly an emotional and challenging endeavor, the process of furnishing their new homes in Greece was a profound act of self-preservation, allowing them to maintain a tangible connection to their past lives, creating a bridge between Egypt and Greece

At the heart of the migration process, however, was the in-between stage of transporting their household goods from Egypt to Greece. In the collective imagination of those migrants – vividly depicted in their narratives – the large shipping containers used for this purpose, emerge as powerful metaphors and symbols. They stand not just as mere physical vessels for belongings; they embody the very “essence of home”, the heart of their former residence. The significance of using the French term fourgon to address them, cannot be overstated. While their containers were stationary wooden boxes of room-like size, reminiscent of a house, the term fourgon in the French language refers to a truck, a wheeled vehicle for the transportation of people or goods. This choice of terminology adds a layer of metaphorical depth, emphasizing the transformative nature of these containers. Just like the migrants themselves, these “moving homes,” cross borders, functioning as symbolic representations of their migratory journey from one country to another.

Figure 2. (From left to right), Crane lorry transports the fourgon to the family’s property ; From container to holiday-“home” ; The converted fourgon by the sea (1962, private collection).

Tracing the fate of a particular fourgon that arrived from Egypt in 1962 (Figure 2), laden with the household goods of a wealthy Greek-Alexandrian family, reveals a remarkable account that further highlights the dynamic nature of home as a concept. After arriving in Athens and having achieved its purpose of safely transporting the family’s belongings, this container met a different fortune from the rest of the containers in question. Instead of being abandoned by its owners, as was the norm, it was kept and treated as an object with the potential to fulfill a new role. Having furnished their new home in Athens, the family also wanted to build a retreat in the countryside. The container was therefore seen as the perfect solution. After being suitably modified — windows were opened on both sides and an additional roof was installed — it was transported by lorry to the family’s property in an area outside Athens and was transformed into a fully habitable holiday home.

This is a vivid example of how a simple wooden box, originally intended to carry a family’s belongings, was transformed into a vessel of continuity that adapted to new roles and meanings. Reflecting on the migration journey of Greeks from Egypt and their profound connection to home, the fate of this container stands as a poignant reminder that home is not confined to a fixed location. Instead, it is a dynamic, evolving, and adaptable concept. It can be transported across geographic boundaries, reimagined in new environments, and reconstructed in new homelands.

This post is based on ethnographic data. For a more comprehensive understanding of the topic, the following bibliography offers further insights.

Boccagni, Paolo & Brighenti, Andrea M., « Immigrants and home in the making: thresholds of domesticity, commonality and publicness »,  Journal of Housing and the Built Environment32, 2017; p.1-11.

Dalachanis, Angelos, The Greek Exodus from Egypt: Diaspora Politics and Emigration, 1937-1962, New York: Berghahn, 2017.

Horst, Heather. A., « Reclaiming Place: The Architecture of Home, Family and Migration », Anthropologica: Journal of the Canadian Anthropological Society 53, n° 1, 2011, p. 29-39.

Ling, Minhua, « Container Housing: Formal Informality and Deterritorialized Home-Making amid Bulldozer Urbanism in Shanghai », Urban Studies 58, n° 6, 2021, p. 1141-1157.

Morley, David. Communications and Mobility: The Migrant, the Mobile Phone, and the Container Box, Chichester, West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons, 2017.