Appendix 1
195
minority rights and development programming. They were contributing to a national
discourse on the subject and were gathering quite a lot of support. This group was in fact
generating potential for broader change as their initiative was part of a larger national
conversation affecting the same constellation of codes and flows at play in the local
development sphere but which also shaped broader understandings of citizenship.
Without the insight provided by MERIAI would have pursued local iterations of
outreach, but would not have immediately realized that these local iterations are part of a
larger process of defining citizenship. MERIA helped me to uncover this larger
negotiation, or generally, the motion or morphogenic process in the field.
Thoughts and Directions
In conclusion, I will discuss briefly two important additional observations relating
to MERIA: one practical∕theoretical and one concerning this methodology’s relevance to
broader disciplinary trends. In terms of the former, MERIA has tended to reorient my
investigations away from examining ‘collectivity’ with reference to ‘culture,’ thus
avoiding potentially limiting categories. This has been a tremendous advantage
especially in Greece since “C”ulture is such a total category, a concept used commonly to
define everything and everyone including minority groups such as Roma, and which can
include phenomena like dress, customs, history, architecture, art, etc. within its delimiting
language. Moreover, Greek Roma themselves have a very closed community which on
the surface seems to be defined by what could be termed cultural identity, or a particular
set of practices and dispositions. It is very easy to slip into these categories, to reproduce
them in one's notes, and to conduct research around their logic. MERIA makes plain,