Paper short abstract:

This paper examines how oral narratives can be associated with processing worship trajectories and to what degree can both constitute emotional collective practices for the appropriation of space.

Paper long abstract:

Appropriating space through religious constructions constitutes a rather common and well studied social strategy, while place names highly contribute in the same direction. Based on long term fieldwork, this paper presents a case study that deals with two distinct practices of emotional appropriation of space in a small insular community, in southeast Aegean, Greece.

First, we examine oral narratives, especially legends and belief/life stories, which are associated with a "mental" landscape dominating the countryside of the island: encounters with either evil supernatural beings or miraculous apparitions of holy beings are regarded as lived experience and make part of personal, family and collective memory. The landscape is thus shaped and memorized according to the specific narrative repertoires, which slightly vary from individual to individual.

Second, we describe ritual processions that constitute a rather common worship practice at several moments of the year: either at Easter or in summer, processing and free marches offer festival occasions for mass gatherings and holy venerations.

Further questions are thus raised: To what extent can these trajectories follow the specific narrative maps? Can narratives be complementary to processing practices? Can initially haunted, and then sacred places make an alternative for "homeland"?