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This paper brings together ethnography as practice research, and theology as experiential theory, towards a comparative ontological interdisciplinary understanding of relational personhood in the world society. The first part of the paper consists of ethnographic data gathered from two monasteries of Mount Athos during my fieldwork between 2002 and 2004, using the anthropological discourse of the "sacred" in terms of reciprocity to represent and interpret the exceptional, heterogeneous, and distinctive character of Orthodox monastic life in ethnographic descriptive terms. In doing so, the paper focuses on the revival of two Byzantine oppositional movements in the 20th century: Hesychasm and Zealotism. In this context, the material raises questions regarding detraditionalization and re-traditionalization, disenchantment and re-enchantment. The paper places these challenges within the postmodern turn to spirituality and subjectivity, and the wider emergence of global Christianity as a postmodern phenomenon. The second part of the paper focuses on the revival of the Greek neo-patristic theology in the 1960s and the writings of Christos Yannaras, interpreted as a postcolonial critique of the discourse of modernity from the relational ontological perspective of Trinitarian theology. It places the empirical material gathered from Athos within the millennial turn to relational ontology, by following the two fundamental elements of personhood: Freedom and Otherness. The paper argues that the millennial opening of Christianity to the world stage and its increasing engagement in the formation of a world society takes place in terms of how one relates both to the invisible God and the visible material World. The paper argues that the (re) emergence of relational ontology in monasticism gives it a distinctive and economic character in a symbiosis with nature and the Others via God's grace, as it emerges within this moment of history and the creation of Ecumenical Christianity. The paper points out to the grey challenging areas that reveal contestation between different understandings of the same relations, traditions, and practices, sometimes even in opposition to each other. It argues that it is though these series of dialectics that constitute the relational ontology of the monastic persona as heterogeneous and ever-changing experience of being and becoming in the World via God's energies, based on the relational ontological Freedom and Otherness (rather than a sterile theoretical concept or a singular stereotype). In this experiential and relational manner, the paper develops the dialectics of these forces from both social anthropological and theological perspectives, sketching the (re)emergence of millennial relational ontology both as a theory (Yannaras) and in practice (monastic living) beyond the modern categories of "East" and "West," and towards the potential role the monastics could play in this moment of History. The material is based on my own fieldwork on Athos that took place back in 2002 to 2004, as well as subsequent research in both Athonian history and archives, from the interdisciplinary perspective of the sociology of religion and contemporary Greek theology. As part of my research on contemporary monastic life on Athos, I chose to do my fieldwork in two neighbouring but rival monasteries, because they represented two opposite attitudes in how the monk relate to the world. Accordingly, the material for this paper looks at the impact of new technologies and world politics on the vocation of the monasteries revealing the heterogeneity and challenges facing monastic life on Athos today in the prospect of the emergence of a new global Christianity within the world setting. It argues that monastic life offers both a model of an alternative and distinctive way of living in relation to the "self", the Others, as well as, world issues, via God's grace on the relational ontological basis of Freedom and Otherness. The opening of the monastic vocation to the world shows however a diversity of modules of engaging with the world that reveal the heterogeneity of ways of relating to God via God's energies because of the same open principles. As the "field" changes within the world system, the challenge for monastics today is both to open and enlarge their vocation in the world via new technologies, but at the same time, to avoid the homogenization of those voices, to preserve the heterogeneity that freely exists in Christian thought in relation to the Other - beyond rigid categorizations and stereotypes of "Eastern" and "Western" Christianities.

This chapter offers an overview of some of the articles, updates, and pre-prints deposited in the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine's open access repository during the "first wave" of the pandemic (January to July 2020). It investigates the hypothesis that stochastic modelling is rapidly evolving alongside the evolution of the virus in terms of representing risk in public as the new "normal" (i.e., the "performative" aspect of research, Rhodes et al. 2020). The chapter argues that this and future pandemics will require the continuous development of a combination of hi-tech tools and interactive technologies that allow for multiple positioning ("super positioning") and deep learning non-linear digital visualizations, live feedback and interactive online databases that give access to communities, in order to achieve prompt timing for the accurate prediction and visualization of the dynamics of the virus on the ground. Accordingly, the chapter shows how modelling rapidly evolved at LSHTM by opening risk assessments from mechanistic singular stochastic models, towards more flexible, multi-sited, combination of models and visual interactive projections. Following this overview, the chapter reflects upon the increasingly important role risk theory plays in relation to the implementation of mathematical models as health policies on the field, within the dialectical terms of integration between anthropology and epidemiology and the enlargement of the scope of research from singular to multiple overlapping "fields" (as in Marcus 1995). By "field", I refer here to the grey areas of investigation, representation, collaboration, cross-examination, and contestation between various teams, methods, tools, sites, institutions, technologies, and their intermedial combinations for providing more accurate understandings of risk in respect to this and future pandemics. In other words, to the "third ethnographic space" from which experiential knowledge emerges in relation to world events (as in Fischer 2018). In doing so, the chapter sketches an evolutionary line between practices and emerging methods in research, returning to Beck's heavily criticised "world risk" theory (1999) and its remerging relevance following the pandemic. It briefly touches bioethical considerations of risk and self-responsibility, and the political implications these may carry for our understanding of the "social" in our contacts and conduct in daily life (i.e., "the presentation of the self in everyday life", as in Erving Goffman's classic 1956 study). From an anthropological perspective, this in turn gives a new emerging social role to mathematical modelling with implications for interdisciplinary theory and the conceptualization of the "social" within the emerging "world society."

This paper proposes a re-evaluation of the relationship between the church and the state in Greece and the EU, focusing on the case of Mt. Athos. The paper argues that Athos is a Maussian 'gift' to Greece: the carrier of the Modern Greek identity, and a poison (farmakon) to the Greek economy, symbolizing decades of corruption of a state that is still struggling to get over its feudal past. It further argues that it is vital to work collectively towards social and political cohesion between the state and the church, through transparency and regulation in Greece, in order to confront the challenge of the European Unification and the unregulated market. These include issues of the avaton, metochia, the impact of the UNESCO Heritage funding and taxation, as well as, discussions over Russian investment in energy policies and transport networks which challenge the European policy objectives for the environment and Transport Network operations undertaken by Structural Funds. Athos is a meeting place of contestation between various secular (i.e. 'cosmopolitan') forces. A re-evaluation of the relation of Athos to Greece and Europe therefore could be used as a strategic model for restructuring and regulating the relationship between secular and theocratic offices; the present and the past; change and tradition.

1 GPSG Working Paper #16 The Gift of the Monks and the Economic Avaton of Athos: Re-evaluating the relationship between Church and State in GreeceMichelangelo Paganopoulos Assistant Lecturer Goldsmiths, University of LondonAbstract This paper proposes a re-evaluation of the relationship between the church and the state in Greece and the EU, focusing on the case of Mt. Athos. The paper argues that Athos is a Maussian 'gift' to Greece: the carrier of the Modern Greek identity, and a poison (farmakon) to the Greek economy, symbolizing decades of corruption of a state that is still struggling to get over its feudal past. It further argues that it is vital to work collectively towards social and political cohesion between the state and the church, through transparency and regulation in Greece, in order to confront the challenge of the European Unification and the unregulated market. These include issues of the avaton, metochia, the impact of the UNESCO Heritage funding and taxation, as well as, discussions over Russian investment in energy policies and transport networks which challenge the European policy objectives for the environment and Transport Network operations undertaken by Structural Funds. Athos is a meeting place of contestation between various secular (i.e. 'cosmopolitan') forces. A re-evaluation of the relation of Athos to Greece and Europe therefore could be used as a strategic model for restructuring and regulating the relationship between secular and theocratic offices; the present and the past; change and tradition. Keywords: Avaton, Kosmikos k/cosmos, Oikonomia ('economy'), partheniki zoe ('virginity'), funding, metochia, taxation, network economy

The proposed paper investigates the personal journey of Christian Orthodox monks ontheir way from the worldly world, via a monastery to heaven. The paper illustrates theimportance of movement in the spiritual and historical reproduction of thebrotherhoods.The paper compares two contrasting journeys from the secular world to Mount Athos, anautonomous, Christian Orthodox monastic republic of twenty monasteries with onlymale monks, situated in northern Greece. Using material gathered during my fieldworkin the neighbouring monasteries of Vatopaidi and Esfigmenou (2002-2004), the paperhighlights the importance of movement in the spiritual reproduction of the twobrotherhoods, as well as in the economic and political status of the two institutions. Theaim is to illustrate how the personal transformation of each monk complements thehistorical movement and changes that take place inside each institution, in relation toan imagined, profane 'world' (k/cosmos) out there. The comparison of the internalregimes and external conduct of the monks of Vatopaidi and Esfigmenou, whichrepresent contrasting and indeed competing views of monastic life, will furtherunderline the heterogeneity of ways of life on the Mount, as well as evolving traditions.In this way, the material offers a record of rapid change in the two monasteries,investigating the paradox of monastic life, as manifested by the monks' strive todisconnect and escape from the material world on their way to an imagined heaven; anact which is in itself a way of engaging with the same worldly world they morally andritually denounce in everyday life.

In the monasteries of the autonomous monastic Republic of Mount Athos, the term 'economy' means the 'law (nomos) of the house (ecos)'. The term is as old as the rule of the Avaton (meaning 'no pass'), the thousand year old prohibition of all females from the peninsula,which separates monastic from secular life. The economy of the Athonian monasteries has internal and external aspects: Internal exchanges take place in the night through a set of private and collective practices associated to spiritual activities regarding the cultivation of the self in terms of apatheia (meaning 'no passions'). Such activities take place within an informal and spiritual hierarchical system, that equally emphasizes both on the detachment of each monk from his materialist and sexual desires, and from the emotional ties that he carries into the monastery from his secular past, in order to liberate him from such 'passions'. On the other hand, external activities refer to the daily work that needs to be done regarding the financial survival, legal status, and vocation of the Monastery as a contemporary institution in the Orthodox world. The two realms are conceived separately: the spiritual hierarchy is headed by the priest-monks with liturgical duties in the night and working tasks in the day regarding the running of the community from inside, while the administrative hierarchy is headed by the Elders, who are responsible for administrative, financial, and legal matters of the monastery. However, as I shall show, in everyday practice, the spiritual and material realms are complementary to each other. Their interdependence becomes evident by looking at the impact of recent changes in monastic life, namely, the importation of new technologies such as the Internet that undermine the Avaton, the impact of the increasing religious tourism that burdens the daily timetable of the monks, the exploitation of the forest for logging and exporting wood, the exploitation of Athonian tradition by selling copies of 'miraculous' items through the Internet and a network of shops and churches from Greece to the US, the consequences of accepting funding from the EU, the issue of monastic properties outside Athos (metochia) and taxation, and the political involvement of the monasteries in Greek public life regarding 'matters of faith', all reveal the increasing tension between the spiritual conduct of each monk inside the monasteries, in contrast to the external conduct of the monastic institutions outside Athos, which largely contradicts their 'virgin' way of life and communal values inside. The paper will briefly investigate these tensions between internal(informal) and external (formal) aspects of monastic economy, by comparing the economic organization of two rival monasteries, in order to highlight the contradictions and moral dilemmas rising from their conduct within the neo-liberal market and contemporary politics of faith. Key Words : economy, virginity, Avaton, apatheia, tamata, metochia, kosmikos, Old Calendar

Bad Marxism is the third major work of John Hutnyk focusing on the problems of representation in the culture industry, and largely inspired by the writings of Marx, Adorno, and Spivak, among others. The book follows The Rumour of Calcutta (1996), in which Hutnyk highlighted the problem of representation in ethnography, and the Critique of Exotica (2000) on the political ambiguity of the notion of 'hybridity' in culture. With Bad Marxism, Hutnyk responds to his two previous books by articulating a sense of political urgency for activism during and after fieldwork in both anthropology and cultural studies.