Mrs Venetia Kantsa is a PhD candidate in the Department of Social Anthopology at London School of Economics and does research on female homosexuality in contemporary Greece.
In 1994 she has conducted a small scale field-study in Eressos, a village situated in the Western part of Lesvos, Greece. Eressos is argued to be the birthplace of Sappho. From the late '70s lesbian women from western societies have begun to visit Eressos during the sumer in order to pay honor to their great foremother Sappho. Nowadays there is to be found a kind of a summer-only lesbian community consisting of women from Greece, Italy, England, Germany, Holland, United States. In the context of her research which resulted to an unpublished MA thesis 'Potentially Friends, Potentially Lovers. Women's Meetings in Eressos Lesvos' -University of Aegean, September 1995- Venetia Kantsa focused on the construction and negotiation of a lesbian identity in Eressos.
In her recent research she examines the discourse on female homosexuality in contemporary Greece. She examines a discourse about female homosexuality as it is articulated in clippings, newspapers, magazines, pamphlets. Simultaneously she is interested in how Greek lesbian women speak about themselves, in which contexts, what do they have to say, if and to which extend their discourse on matters such as identity, sexuality, family, motherhood, friendship is considered to be 'different'.
In the context of her recent research she addresses the above call for participation to every woman is interested in.
This page was created: Jan. 4th, 1997. Last modified: March 8th, 1997.