74 Johannes Siapkas
studies. In his emphasis on the alternative inclusive model, Gruen shies away from issues
raised by post-colonial studies. The biased nature of our sources is an issue that was
acknowledged by Greg Woolf, who is critical of the notion of Romanization (Woolf
1998, 2011). Woolf turns to post-colonial notions of hybridity and creolization in order
to emphasize the mixture of local, indigenous practices and Roman influences in the cul-
tures and identities in the provincial Roman Empire. This questions and complicates the
established view of Romanization as a uni-directional top-down process (e.g., Haverfield
and Macdonald 1923; see Wallace-Hadrill 2008: 9–14, for a summary of the Romaniza-
tion debate). Other elaborations that are influenced by post-colonial theories of hybridity
and creolization are Malkin (2002), van Dommelen (2002), and Wallace-Hadrill (2008).
Another feature of the dynamic view on culture is the deconstruction of cultures as
monolithic and homogenous entities. Cultures and cultural identities are, in contrast,
considered negotiable, and are arenas with inherent conflicts. They encompass tensions
and opposing views. In other words, the conceptualization of the past as consisting
of clear-cut, bounded, and different cultures is called into question (see, in particular,
Dougherty and Kurke 1993, 2003; but also Malkin 2004).
A consequence of the emic perspective is the reinforcement of the discursive hegemony
of textual evidence in Classical Studies. The fragmentary nature of the archaeological and
historical record hampers our search for subjective notions of identities. On account of
this, archaeological studies of ethnicity are often dismissed as futile endeavors (e.g., Hall
2002: 19–29; Brather 2004; Curta 2007: 162; Funke and Luraghi 2009; MacSweeney
2009: 101–6). In my view, this questioning is founded on the false assumption that
archaeological and historical studies of ethnicity primarily aim to verify the existence of
certain ethnic groups in the past (see also Antonaccio 2010). This does not account for
the recent attempts by archaeologists to shift their focus toward the complex processes
and discourses that are involved in the articulation of identities through material culture.
For instance, Feuer’s recent article includes an exhaustive account of primordialism and
instrumentalism, as well as the etic and emic perspectives, but ignores the archaeological
attempts to implement practice theories (Feuer 2011). However, it is not my intention
to lament over the theoretical naiveté of Classical Studies. There are also elaborations
on ancient ethnicities that contribute to push Classical Studies forward. Irad Malkin has
persistently emphasized the fluidity and mutability of ancient ethnicities (Malkin 1994,
1998). His endeavor has been guided by post-colonial concepts (e.g., Malkin 2004),
but he has also introduced and developed a network model for the conceptualization
of ancient Greek civilization, identities, and ethnicity (Malkin 2003, 2011). The basic
dynamic notion that identities develop through encounters with “Others” is framed by
a conceptualization of the encounters in non-hierarchical structures or networks, and
particular attention is paid to distance and travel as a constituent part of identities. The
emphasis on the multiplicity of the encounters is, in a sense, a development of the cultural
turn (see Siapkas forthcoming).
Modern Discourses of Ancient Ethnicities
In this chapter, I have emphasized the effects of theoretical assumptions on our concep-
tualizations of ancient ethnicities. Despite, or perhaps because of, their elusive nature,