Sfakians on the island of Crete are known for their distinctive dress and appearance, fierce ruggedness, and devotion to traditional ways. Konstantinos Kalantzis explores how Sfakians live with the burdens and pleasures of maintaining these expectations of exoticism for themselves, for their fellow Greeks, and for tourists. Sfakian performance of masculine tradition has become even more meaningful for Greeks looking to reimagine their nation's global standing in the wake of stringent financial regulation, and for non-Greek tourists yearning for rootedness and escape from the post-industrial north. Through fine-grained ethnography that pays special attention to photography, Tradition in the Frame explores the ambivalence of a society expected to conform to outsiders' perception of the traditional even as it strives to enact its own vision of tradition. From the bodily reenactment of historical photographs to the unpredictable, emotionally-charged uses of postcards and commercial labels, the book unpacks the question of power and asymmetry but also uncovers other political possibilities that are nested in visual culture and experiences of tradition and the past. Kalantzis explores the crossroads of cultural performance and social imagination where the frame is both empowerment and subjection.

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Kalantzis has produced remarkably detailed and perceptive ethnography (if that is a word that can still be used) of a very particular society in southwestern Crete, aspects of which, however, would be immediately recognizable to anyone who has spent time anywhere in Greece and would also, I think, be found in very many contemporary societies around the world: hence my graceless intrusion of expatriate London Australians, or Irish or Texans in this review. But good ethnographies always move us from a consideration of the particular to its resonances in society in general.

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The valuable theory produced by the book's in-depth ethnography of the complex milieu of tradition in Sfakia and the way it links to the meanings, limits and creative subversions in visual frames, can take many movements-directions as it joins together the anthropological study of Crete, gender, exoticism, nationhood, agency, and resistance.

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Immediately upon reading Tradition in the Frame, the reader is transported to the mountains of the Aegean Sea where Kalantzis unfolds layer after layer of paradoxes and tensions and, as good ethnography should, works to explain how they are resolved and mitigated. . . . Those looking to explore how to incorporate visual methods in unexpected ways will find this book particularly useful; in fact, the dedication to the use of photography to explore the myriad tensions between past/present, traditional/modern, Crete/Greece, while situating this all within a larger framework of Europeanization is a welcome model.

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Based on fieldwork in Crete, Tradition in the Frame is an ethnography that turns the seemingly facile observation that tradition is important to Greeks into a fascinating exploration of how visuality, and photography in particular, shapes dynamics of power and people's understanding of themselves. . . . In its breadth and sophistication this book is an invaluable contribution to visual anthropology and to the study of modern Greece.

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In Tradition in the Frame: Photography, Power, and Imagination in Sfakia, Crete, Konstantinos Kalantzis explores the experiences of Sfakians in Crete to reflect on how tradition is made meaningful today and what this can tell us about the dynamics of localisation, globalisation, modernity and belonging in our contemporary world. This is a rich and enjoyable read that will be of interest to scholars and students looking for new, generative approaches to visual culture at the intersection of the local and the global,

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The tools that Kalantzis generously lays out for his fellow anthropologists will, no doubt, open up this conversation toward new horizons for there is indeed much to be seen beyond the edges of cultural convention.

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The study of tradition, along with that of power, remain colossal concerns across the social sciences and humanities. Joining a significant lineage on these topics is Konstantinos Kalantzis' book, Tradition in the Frame: Photography, Power, and Imagination in Sfakia, Crete, which offers an ethnographically precise and broad-ranging analysis of the architectonics of power and tradition in and in relation to Sfakia, a mountainous coastal region in southwest Crete. . . . for its plethora of visual-ethnographic examples, engaging storytelling, and depth of analytical insights, Tradition in the Frame will be of great interest to students and scholars working across anthropology, photography, visual culture, and beyond.