Christina Maria Carasis (She/Her) (2027) | Geography
Christina Maria Carasis is a fourth-year Geography major and second-year transfer student researching Arvanitika, an endangered language in Greece that is also part of her own family history. Using mapping tools from her geography coursework, Christina is working with communities in Argolida, Greece, to map personal stories and connections between villages where the language has survived. Her research explores how relationships between people and the landscape have helped preserve Arvanitika, while challenging broader ideas of cultural homogeneity in the region. Through her fieldwork, Christina hopes to create a map that local communities can use to share their history and culture and support future efforts to revitalize the language.
What first drew you to this topic? Was there a moment, class, experience, or question that made you want to learn more?
My interest in Arvanitika comes from my own family history. My family are Greek-Arvanites, and my great-grandfather was the last person in our family to speak the language. A few years ago, my traditional dance group performed a set of Arvanitika folk songs, and my grandfather instantly recognized one as a song his grandmother used to sing. That moment made me want to understand how our language became endangered. Later, when I transferred to Cal, two amazing classes inspired me to dig deeper and come up with this project: one on social mapping and one on the politics of language in Greece. Everything finally clicked when I realized I could use the tools I learned in my geography courses to map the language and help restore the cultural connection my family lost.
How would you explain your research to someone who knows nothing about your field?
Standard maps show borders, roads, and topography, but they miss the human story, and human relationships with the land. Arvanitika is an endangered language in Greece, and to understand how it has survived in some areas and died off in others, you have to look at the land and the connections between the people who live there. My research is rewriting the map of Argolida, Greece in collaboration with the local community. By mapping personal stories and inter-village connections, I’m challenging the idea of cultural homogeneity in the region and showing how the landscape itself helps sustain their language.
What was the most exciting or rewarding part of working on this project?
The most rewarding part of working on this project has been hearing the language that was lost in my family for generations being spoken or sung freely. Additionally, being trusted with the stories of people’s lives is something that I will never take for granted. I am so honored to have gotten to speak with truly amazing people during my fieldwork.
What’s something you discovered through your research that surprised you or changed the way you think about the topic
I originally planned to create a large map covering the entirety of Greece and highlighting every region where Arvanitika is spoken. However, once I started, I realized that the real story I wanted to focus on was in the intricate connections between a much smaller cluster of villages on one mountain. Narrowing my focus enabled me to highlight the human geography that binds these communities together, which is something a macro-level map would have overlooked.
Was there a challenge or unexpected moment during your research that really shaped your experience?
Right at the start of my fieldwork, I went to a village that has been researched before and came in straight away with all of my equipment ready to conduct interviews. People were kind to me but let me know that they were tired of being studied, and that they felt that past researchers had come in just to document a language before it dies and then leave. This really shaped how I approached the rest of my fieldwork, and I made sure to take the time to really get to know people before we ever started an interview. I wanted this map to be community led, and I’m glad that people spoke up during these first interactions so I could step back, slow down, and let them lead.
What do you hope comes out of this research, whether that’s something you continue exploring or simply something you take with you from the experience?
I hope that the map I create will be a tool that these villages can use in their own community centers and folk museums to share their history and culture, and I also hope that this project can draw attention to Arvanitika, inspiring more revitalization efforts for the language.