Paper Short Abstract:

In this paper we will focus on the unwritten “history” of this open air market, that is a half century old. The paper is based on interviews and on archival ethnography in the association of rag and bone traders. Main topics: a) the beginning and the transformations of this “marginal” market, b) the unwritten history of the professional organization of this group. In fact, far from being a marginal group, migrants rag and bone traders make up what is clearly a professional body, with extensive commercial networks in Greece and in the Balkans that facilitate the transport of objects, in particular items of folk art, to many countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. c) also, we will examine the memory of the clients of the market: how much they estimate the value of the market and which are their emotions.

Paper Abstract:

Most people, on hearing of rag and bone traders, think of the socially and economically marginalized. This, however, is a highly distorted picture. Rag and bone men began their activities in Athens towards the end of the 1960s. In the early 1990s, they founded a professional association. With the onset of the financial crisis of 2010, many migrants and refugees became resorted to this taking up this occupation. As a means of dealing with the insecurity of employment that they faced, they turned to gathering iron items they found in the streets.

More specifically, in this paper we will focus on the unwritten “history” of this open air market, that is a half century old. The paper is based on interviews and on archival ethnography in the association of rag and bone traders. Main topics: a) the beginning and the transformations of this “marginal” market, b) the unwritten history of the professional organization of this group. In fact, far from being a marginal group, migrants rag and bone traders make up what is clearly a professional body, with extensive commercial networks in Greece and in the Balkans that facilitate the transport of objects, in particular items of folk art, to many countries in the Balkans and Eastern Europe. c) also, we will examine the memory of the clients of the market: how much they estimate the value of the market and which are their emotions.