Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology

The successful effort to establish an academic research unit at the Democritus University of Thrace, dedicated to the study of folk culture, dates back to 2010, when Professor of Folklore Emmanouil G. Varvounis, together with then Associate Professor of Social Anthropology Vasileios Dalkavoukis, submitted a proposal to the former Department of History and Ethnology of DUTH for the establishment of the “Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology”. Even prior to its official establishment, the Laboratory was organized and equipped so as to operate at both an educational and research level from the academic year 2011-2012 onwards, and it subsequently developed international scientific collaborations. The Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology was officially established by Official Gazette decision in July 2015 (Official Gazette 1390, Issue B’, 6 July 2015, pp. 15212–15214, Decision No. A4777).

At the Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology, faculty members of DUTH specializing in Folklore, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Semiotics are affiliated and actively engaged, with significant research and publication output across these fields. The core objective of the Laboratory’s research identity is the systematic documentation and scholarly study of Greek folk culture, traditional, modern, and contemporary, through the tools of an interdisciplinary approach, within the framework of a productive academic dialogue between Folklore and Social Anthropology, which is consistently cultivated and promoted through its activities.

Laboratory Details

Laboratory Title: Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology

Faculty: Faculty of Humanities

School: Humanities Studies

Email: lafsaheduth@gmail.com

Telephone: 2531039377

Website:

Official Gazette of Establishment:

Introduction - Presentation

The successful effort to establish an academic research unit at the Democritus University of Thrace, dedicated to the study of folk culture, dates back to 2010, when Professor of Folklore Emmanouil G. Varvounis, together with then Associate Professor of Social Anthropology Vasileios Dalkavoukis, submitted a proposal to the former Department of History and Ethnology of DUTH for the establishment of the “Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology”. Even prior to its official establishment, the Laboratory was organized and equipped so as to operate at both an educational and research level from the academic year 2011-2012 onwards, and it subsequently developed international scientific collaborations. The Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology was officially established by Official Gazette decision in July 2015 (Official Gazette 1390, Issue B’, 6 July 2015, pp. 15212–15214, Decision No. A4777). At the Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology, faculty members of DUTH specializing in Folklore, Social and Cultural Anthropology, and Semiotics are affiliated and actively engaged, with significant research and publication output across these fields. The core objective of the Laboratory’s research identity is the systematic documentation and scholarly study of Greek folk culture, traditional, modern, and contemporary, through the tools of an interdisciplinary approach, within the framework of a productive academic dialogue between Folklore and Social Anthropology, which is consistently cultivated and promoted through its activities.

Field of Research

Folklore, Social Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Semiotics

Laboratory Members

Name	Position/Capacity	Email	Telephone
Emmanouil Varvounis	Director	evarvoun@hs.duth.gr	2531039472
Vasileios Dalkavoukis	Faculty Member	vdalkavo@hs.duth.gr	2531039474
Aikaterini Markou	Faculty Member	amarkou@hs.duth.gr	2531039477
Vasiliki Kravva	Faculty Member	vkravva@hs.duth.gr	2531039473
Athena Macha	Faculty Member	amacha@hs.duth.gr	2531039471
Athanasios Kougkoulos	Faculty Member	akougkou@hs.duth.gr	2531039368
Stavros Kiotsekoglou	Special Teaching Staff	skiotsek@hs.duth.gr	2531039377
Maria Amoiridou	Postdoctoral Researcher
Spyridon Efstathiou	Postdoctoral Researcher
Fr. Ilias Karalis	Postdoctoral Researcher
Maria Margariti	Postdoctoral Researcher
Stavros Michalopoulos	Postdoctoral Researcher
Georgios Stoukis	Postdoctoral Researcher

Featured Research Programs

Programme Title	Duration	Funding
Mapping the Greek City Mysteries of the 19th century (Map.City.Myst.) / Project Number: 25459	2025-2028	H.F.R.I.: 3rd Call for H.F.R.I.’s Research Projects to Support Faculty Members & Researchers
Creation of a Database for Folk Performances and Traditional Costume in Eastern Macedonia and Thrace	2021-2023	Regional Union of Municipalities of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace
Different Identities and Functions of Urban Space: A Comparative Study of the Circumstances in Belgrade and Athens, in collaboration with the Institute of Ethnography SASA (Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts)	2019-2023	Private funding

Featured Publications

Chronological Order	APP	doi
M. G. Varvounis, Humanities and research. Ten years of operation of the Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology of the Democritus University of Thrace, Laboratory of Folklore and Social Anthropology, Democritus University of Thrace - Paratiritis tis Thrakis Publications, Komotini 2025.	URL: https://shorturl.at/SW6Se
Thanasis V. Kougkoulos, “The dream motif in 19th century Greek Urban ‘Apocrypha’”, Lexis. Athener Zeitschrift für Germanistik (Electronic journal of the Department of German Language and Literature of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens), forthcoming. [Related to the research project “Mapping the Greek City Mysteries of the 19th century”]
Mary Margariti, “Representations of Athens and Constantinople in two popular novels of 1889,” Mikrophilologika 59 (Spring 2026), pp. 19–32. [Related to the research project “Mapping the Greek City Mysteries of the 19th century”]