This volume reveals the historical dynamism of what appears at first sight to be a forgotten backwater. Meganisi is one of the smallest and most remote of the Greek Ionian islands. From another point of view, it is the centre of the world, and its sailors travel literally from China to Peru while its migrants maintain familial connections from Johannesburg to Montreal. The villages of Meganisi are tightly-knit communities and this detailed ethnographic study explores the basis on which the islanders' solidarity and sense of identity are constructed andreconstructed despite population mobility and economic change: the values, sentiments and structures of kinship and family. Series Editors: Wendy James & N.J. Allen