Charles Stewart

Preface to the Greek Translation of Demons and the Devil [Published as ∆αίμονες & ∆ιάβολος στην Ελλάδα, Αθήνα: Ταξιδευτής, 2008] When I published this book in English I pledged that I would make its contents available in Greek so that the people of Naxos, where I did field research, would be able to read it. Now, at last, I am able to fulfil that promise. I do so with considerable trepidation, however, because this is, after all, an unusual situation. A foreigner has made an anthropological investigation of the intimate cultural area of Christian Orthodox and unorthodox beliefs and practices. Now he submits his interpretations for inspection by a wide Greek readership, most of who have lived the ideas described herein. On the basis of personal experience, this audience may claim an equal, or greater, authority to determine cultural meaning. Perhaps this is another way of saying that I occupy the wrong side in a matter of what Michael Herzfeld (2005) has termed 'cultural intimacy' [politistikí oikeiótita] a concept roughly summarized by the following illustration: I may criticize my parents but you are not allowed to do so, at least not in front of me. Even if what I say in this book is relatively accurate, there remains the question of whether an outsider should be allowed publicly to say these things at all. It is a vulnerable position, to say the least. But 'cultural intimacy' becomes a dangerous idea in anthropology if it cuts the ground out from beneath a people's ability to respond to anthropological representations made of them. This volume will no doubt receive the criticism it deserves. My real hope, however, is that it will stimulate further discussion of how Orthodoxy figures as part of everyday practice, and how it is configured in local religious worlds.