Summary: | Situated in the south-eastern Mediterranean, close to the Anatolian coast, Castellorizo is the easternmost island of the Greek territory. Part of the actual Dodecanese regional unit, Castellorizo has been maintaining vivid links to the rest of the region during the Pre-modern Era. If we focus on the present informal commercial exchanges between the inhabitants of Castellorizo and those of the Turkish coastal town of Kaş, these links appear as reoccurring patterns of Ottoman-era neighbourhood ties. This cross-border trading tends to create stronger relationships between people living geographically close to each other and sharing equally unstable structural frames. In Greek, as in Turkish language, 'alisverissi' (alışveriş) is used to describe economic and cultural contact. Local and regional everyday practices give this cross-border mobility a subtly socio-economic dimension, which helps the two border people cope with internal and external crises. This fact should be further studied, since it can be used as a go-between for Greece and Turkey as far as the Aegean dispute is concerned.
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