The 1914 forced displacement of the Ottoman Greek population of Phocaea: an online interactive documentary.

Focusing on an often overlooked series of violent events during the decade preceding the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, this interactive documentary brings together a synthesis of microhistory, oral history, historiography, and digital non-linear interactive architecture and narrative capabilities, in an effort to inform, educate, entertain, and surprise its users. It is a digital ark of memory about the June 12-13, 1914 looting of the coastal towns of Old Phocaea and New Phocaea (in what is now Turkey) by Ottoman government-backed irregulars, with the aim of forcefully expelling the local Ottoman Greek population. An instance of ethnic cleansing, the events easily feed into the decades-long hostile character of Greco-Turkish relations which builds on victimization and retaliation. Yet through extensive historical research, original interviews with historians from both Turkey and Greece, the translation and curation of eye-witnesses’ statements and memoirs, photographic evidence, newspaper clippings, official ministerial correspondence, and original video interviews with Greeks and Turks connected to the towns, the Phocaea 1914 i-doc challenges –for anyone with a WiFi connection– the supposed inevitability of Greco-Turkish antagonism by providing access to first-hand accounts of what perpetrators thought and victims experienced, and by highlighting stories of mutual understanding that span more than a century. It does that by building a user experience that simulates what a historical researcher does: discovers and cross-checks diverse historical data and appreciates the interpretational conflicts hidden in putting them together into narratives. In this way, Phocaea 1914 does what journalistic and history i-docs rarely do: it questions its own main narrative lines, presents divergent historical interpretations, and provides users with the means to compare them against each other and against historical evidence. It thus serves as a prototype for future i-doc designers who may wish to incorporate historical research into their work –and must acknowledge the tension between the veracity of facts and the subjectivity of representation and performance– as well as for historians who might want to examine digital interactive ways to conduct and showcase research, and to teach methodology to their students. It can also be utilised in future empirical studies that will systematically test whether meaning-complexity in online interactive platforms encourages open-mindedness in users and/or behavioural tolerance towards ‘the Other’.

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Bournemouth University

Year dc:date.issued

2021

Author dc:creator

• Glyniadakis, Krystalli

Language dc:language

en