Civility and Progress: Envisaging Cosmopolitanism in the Islands of Mamma Mia! (2008)

Who decides if Hollywood simulacra provide more suitable representations of your culture than the centuries-old icons of Virgin Mary, the local Saint Riginos and the tales about your Oriental archenemy, Islam? This question weighs heavy on the minds of inhabitants and Greek seasonal workers of Skiathos and Skopelos, two islands from the Aegean complex of Sporades that served as cinematic locations for Mama Mia! (2008). The paper debates local understandings of heritage and their connections with national history following the film’s global success. The clash between old and new understandings of heritage was enacted in virtual networks (blogs, Greek and foreign websites) but is also ongoing ‘on location’, presenting ‘memory work’ as the product of imaginary mobilities par excellence. But the fact that Greek entrepreneurs figure in this clash as the symbolic creators of new ‘economies of signs and space’ should not be dissociated from the fact that Sporadiote past and present identities are cosmopolitan products characterised by interplays of cultural mobilities and human migrations.