No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the author.
Wit and Greece's economic crisis: Ironic slogans, food, and antiausterity sentiments: Wit and Greece's economic crisis
Abstract
Ironic slogans voice opposition to neoliberal austerity measures as people in western Thessaly, Greece, strive to account for dramatically increasing poverty and cultivate a sense of collective suffering in an era of economic crisis. The slogans are pinned to moments of socioeconomic turmoil in recent Greek history, such as the 1941–43 famine and the 1973 polytechnic uprising against military dictatorship. Through satire, they capture local and national attitudes toward the government's current austerity policy and neoliberalism more generally. Drawing on powerful tropes of food, the slogans critique the experiences of neoliberal reform, becoming sites of resistance and solidarity that reframe relations between local people, their government, and international creditors.
... Makovicky's chapter thus illustrates how slogans operate not only by appealing to popular notions of civic responsibility, but also by establishing particular historically and ideologically circumscribed connections between speech and its larger context. Similarly, Daniel Knight ( 2015 ) shows how the slogan "Together We Ate It," coined by the Greek deputy prime minister Theodoros Pangalos in 2010, gained semantic currency through its employment of the phrase "to eat" -a well-known metaphor for pilfering and theft in Greece. Suggesting every Greek citizen had in some way played a part in creating a ruinous culture of corruption and profl igacy ("to eat"), following the vertiginous debt the state contracted and accrued during the "fat" years of economic boom in the early 2000s, Pangalos's statement implied that every individual had to bear his or her share of the stringent austerity measures subsequently imposed by the socalled "Troika". ...
... Thus, in the process of being "de-condensed" -the de-coupling of the individual and the collective -slogans also rest on, and may undergo, reentextualization. Daniel Knight ( 2015 ), observing that Greeks were largely unconvinced by efforts to persuade them of their collective responsibility for the economic crises, notes that emotive and/ or ironic counter-slogans became a crucial way for citizens to voice their opposition to neoliberal austerity measures. Popular slogans of protest and resistance from other events were reborn and recycled, such as the "Bread, Education, Freedom" from the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising. ...
... Indeed, Michael Carrithers has already pointed out that the rhetorical use of such "inchoate pronouns" (I, you, we, they) can energize nationalist and patriotic sentiment by linking "the intimate, modest, and domestic with the broad and generic" (2008: 184, also Herzfeld 1997 BIB-043. 9 Daniel Knight's ( 2015 ) article, which was originally intended for publication in this volume, could not be included due to permission reasons. 10 For a critique of the tendency to fi nd (and romanticize) "resistance" in the uses of specifi c language forms, as in Scott's notion of "hidden transcript", see Gal ( 1995 ) ...
In this volume, we examine the production and use of political slogans
in various locales across the globe, seeking to throw light on how words are employed to persuade and affect publics in an age of global capitalism. We consider how the slogan as a particular cultural form operates in settings where political performance is shaped by the neoliberal logic of governance. In the ethnographic case studies collected for this volume, slogans emerge as the product of both government policy and popular action in circumstances of accelerated economic and political transitions.
... When we are talking of a 'crisis' while relating back to the situation in Greece after 2010 there is a risk of orientalising poverty, the suffering that has occurred, as well as the different resistance movements that arose and that are still active today (Agelopoulos 2016;Knight 2013;Knight 2015a). A repeated reference to a 'crisis' can also be used as a trope that serves the spreading of fear or as a threat, for example in putting forth the idea that if other European states are unwilling to comply to austerity measures and are moving away from the idea of a balanced budget, the so-called 'Greek crisis' will repeat itself. ...
... When we are talking of a 'crisis' while relating back to the situation in Greece after 2010 there is a risk of orientalising poverty, the suffering that has occurred, as well as the different resistance movements that arose and that are still active today (Agelopoulos 2016;Knight 2013;Knight 2015a). A repeated reference to a 'crisis' can also be used as a trope that serves the spreading of fear or as a threat, for example in putting forth the idea that if other European states are unwilling to comply to austerity measures and are moving away from the idea of a balanced budget, the so-called 'Greek crisis' will repeat itself. ...
... This period saw a marked shift in urban politics, which can be considered a significant development, since a lot of Greece's population is concentrated in its biggest cities and the surrounding areas (see for the data: the Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2018). During this first shift toward neoliberal reform public land speculation, privatisation, the financialization of life and the overall commodification of urban space became noticeable (see for example : Agelopoulos 2016;Alexandrakis 2013Alexandrakis , 2016Cabot 2016b;Knight 2015a;Rakopoulos 2014a). Those measures implemented proved of vital importance for future conflicts in Greece and already led to strikes, social movements and organization on the basis of solidarity of those who were already deeply affected by the changes (Apoifis 2017, 6). ...
The following paper is to be considered an anthropological investigation of subjectivity and subject positions after the Greek Debt Crisis after 2010 until today. Signs of the subjective condition that Maurizio Lazzarato calls the Indebted Man can be traced within the ethnographic accounts of Greece during the ongoing struggle revolving around the manifold issues that were raised during that period. Among others, a focus on the subject reveals that an inscription of the debt into the indebted subject’s bodies, a drastic shift in the perception of temporality and time, as well as strong moralization of the condition of indebtedness are present in the ethnographic accounts that are reviewed here. Despite a broad agreement with a lot of Graeber’s basic premises this paper argues along the lines of Maurizio Lazzarato that our current mode of capitalist production and domination eludes Graeber’s categories in respect to the nature of debt as a power apparatus that captures our subject positions. Today, capitalism is characterized by one key feature: Debt constitutes capitalism’s Lacanian Real. Through this assessment a focus on subjectivity and the subject position as an anthropological tool of investigation emerges. This emphasis, according to this paper, can serve as a starting point to reconsider the ethnographic material gathered after the Greek debt Crisis after 2011 on the basis of new theoretical assessments on the complexities of debt and neoliberalism’s modes of coercion.
... When we are talking of a 'crisis' while relating back to the situation in Greece after 2010 there is a risk of orientalising poverty, the suffering that has occurred, as well as the different resistance movements that arose and that are still active today (Agelopoulos 2016;Knight 2013;Knight 2015a). A repeated reference to a 'crisis' can also be used as a trope that serves the spreading of fear or as a threat, for example in putting forth the idea that if other European states are unwilling to comply to austerity measures and are moving away from the idea of a balanced budget, the so-called 'Greek crisis' will repeat itself. ...
... When we are talking of a 'crisis' while relating back to the situation in Greece after 2010 there is a risk of orientalising poverty, the suffering that has occurred, as well as the different resistance movements that arose and that are still active today (Agelopoulos 2016;Knight 2013;Knight 2015a). A repeated reference to a 'crisis' can also be used as a trope that serves the spreading of fear or as a threat, for example in putting forth the idea that if other European states are unwilling to comply to austerity measures and are moving away from the idea of a balanced budget, the so-called 'Greek crisis' will repeat itself. ...
... This period saw a marked shift in urban politics, which can be considered a significant development, since a lot of Greece's population is concentrated in its biggest cities and the surrounding areas (see for the data: the Hellenic Statistical Authority, 2018). During this first shift toward neoliberal reform public land speculation, privatisation, the financialization of life and the overall commodification of urban space became noticeable (see for example: Agelopoulos 2016; Alexandrakis 2013Alexandrakis , 2016Cabot 2016b;Knight 2015a;Rakopoulos 2014a). Those measures implemented proved of vital importance for future conflicts in Greece and already led to strikes, social movements and organization on the basis of solidarity of those who were already deeply affected by the changes (Apoifis 2017, 6). ...
The following paper is to be considered an anthropological investigation of subjectivity and subject positions after the Greek Debt Crisis after 2010 until today. Signs of the subjective condition that Maurizio Lazzarato calls the Indebted Man can be traced within the ethnographic accounts of Greece during the ongoing struggle revolving around the manifold issues that were raised during that period. Among others, a focus on the subject reveals that an inscription of the debt into the indebted subject’s bodies, a drastic shift in the perception of temporality and time, as well as strong moralization of the condition of indebtedness are present in the ethnographic accounts that are reviewed here. Despite a broad agreement with a lot of Graeber’s basic premises this paper argues along the lines of Maurizio Lazzarato that our current mode of capitalist production and domination eludes Graeber’s categories in respect to the nature of debt as a power apparatus that captures our subject positions. Today, capitalism is characterized by one key feature: Debt constitutes capitalism’s Lacanian Real. Through this assessment a focus on subjectivity and the subject position as an anthropological tool of investigation emerges. This emphasis, according to this paper, can serve as a starting point to reconsider the ethnographic material gathered after the Greek debt Crisis after 2011 on the basis of new theoretical assessments on the complexities of debt and neoliberalism’s modes of coercion.
... Generally, objectives are susceptible to change (Koppenjan & Klijn, 2004), essentially in an industry subject to international pressures and price volatility (Genc et al., 2018;Khalifa, Caporin, & Hammoudeh, 2015;Palazuelos & Fernández, 2012;Ruble, 2017). In addition to a region, where some states socioeconomic dynamics and deterred economic conditions may paralyse their abilities to pay debts to international firms (Barsoum, 2017;Ibrahim, 2015;Knight, 2015;Psycharis, Kallioras, & Pantazis, 2014). A manager, however, must search for 'goal congruency' between actors in partnerships Klijn et al., 2010Klijn et al., , 2015. ...
... In instances, public partners reclassify the cost in their favour to delay repayments to international firms. Especially if the state is suffering from deterred economic conditions (Barsoum, 2017;Ibrahim, 2015;Knight, 2015). In turn, private partners face unexpected losses from the project. ...
Non-Equity Public-Private Joint Ventures (NE-PPJVs) are one of the pervasive forms of Public-Private Partnerships in sovereign industries of emerging economies. They entail a state-international business relationship to extract and develop mineral reserves. The complexities in governing the partnership transcend the contractual agreement due to the tightness of the organizational form, and the state biased hierarchal structure within three core exchanges: the management-staff exchange, the inter-organisational exchange and the intra-organisational exchange. Research has shown that several non- contractual factors may influence and drive the governance and performance of a wide range of PPPs. However, which factors are linked to the core exchanges of tight partnerships remains unclear. Building on the concepts of, principal-agent theory, and network governance, this article addresses the relational and managerial performance factors influencing the governance of NE-PPJVs in emerging economies. Qualitative empirical data was gathered by interviewing public and private senior executives in the field. The findings identified seven factors within the three core exchanges of the partnership. Such findings corroborated with the overarching tenants of the New Public Governance.
... While anthropological research has questioned the meaning and foundations of these writings (Fraenkel, 2007), sociology has not yet fully grasped the demonstrative power of this raw matter. Beyond its illustrative application, the use of this type of writing as sociological research material in its own right is, paradoxically, still rare, except for a few targeted works (Truc, 2006;Gerbaudo, 2012;Knight, 2015). To encourage the development of such use, this article presents a reflection on the epistemological potential, methodological challenges, and analytical contributions of this material. ...
... However, this relative void is now being filled. In recent years, some ethnographic studies have made use of slogans as analytical material in their own right, to approach targeted movements like the 2009 social movement in Iran (Gheytanchi et al., 2010), the antiausterity movement in Greece (Knight, 2015), the 2014 pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong (Veg, 2016), or the pro-climate march (Bowman, 2020). Attention is also being paid to the social media publications of post-2008 movements, for example, the exploration of the role of protest tweets (Gerbaudo, 2012). ...
This article explores the theoretical and empirical interest of protest slogans and writings for social movement research. It shows how this material can contribute to a better understanding of collective identities, emotions, and claims made in contemporary demonstrations. Theoretically, it invites researchers to go beyond the actual ‘words’ to invest these slogans as political performances: increasingly individualized and diversified, these writings carry a public staging and a political discourse that can address multiple audiences. Therefore, they give access to the individual and collective voices expressed within contemporary social movements – and the way they interplay. To take into account their diversity, the article proposes a typology of the main political functions of these writings – whether they aim to lay claims, to proclaim, to mobilize or to witness, which will determine their very form and their favored support. Secondly, the article revisits the ethical and methodological issues raised by the collection and analysis of protest writings for the empirical study of social movements. It examines different ways of mining their potential for comparison and mixed method device, through either textual, visual or qualitative analysis. To do so, it draws on the experience and results of an international study of youth social movements in the second decade of the twenty-first century, to which this method was widely applied to identify and compare the fundamental rhetorics of these post-2008 protests.
... We call a slogan that mentions a particular geographical region, culture, language, or race to identify the origin of a specific product an ethno-positioning slogan. In that vein, slogans provoke complex emotional responses, and they harness the importance of cultural and territorial origin of food products (Knight, 2015;Zhang and Merunka, 2015). Another point of view believes slogans should be "short and catchy" (Dass et al., 2014) but still state the brand's main strengths and highlight the significance of particular attributes of the product (Kohli et al., 2007). ...
... In addition, slogans, which can give consumers their first impressions of a product or brand (Dass et al., 2014), provide potential consumers with reasons to purchase (Briggs and Janakiraman, 2017). For local food products usually bought by tourists, slogans that harness local culture and territorial origin (Knight, 2015;Zhang and Merunka, 2015) can enhance the perceived value of the products. In a more recent study, Wang et al. (2021) demonstrated that tea packaging with geographical labels resulted in higher purchase intention. ...
Purpose:
This paper investigates how to design traditional ready-to-eat food packaging by manipulating its shape, font, and slogan to promote consumer buying intention and willingness to pay.
Method:
Two package designs, interplaying the square shapes (vertical vs. horizontal), font formality (formal vs. less formal/casual), and slogans (ethno-positioning vs. short and catchy), were created and tested in an online experiment with 483 participants.
Findings:
The results revealed that the differed package designs elicited relatively equal levels of attractiveness to consumers and their buying intentions. However, the designs significantly differentiated consumers' willingness to pay (WTP). The results further show the significant direct and indirect effects on WTP of packaging attractiveness when it is moderated by package designs and mediated by buying intention. However, the varied package designs did not have significant direct or indirect impacts on WTP when mediated by packaging attractiveness and buying intention.
Originality/theoretical contribution:
This study complements existing studies of "cue utilization theory" and "packaging design theory" by demonstrating the importance of extrinsic packaging cues, such as shape, font style, and slogan, in improving consumers' WTP for 2 traditional food products. The study also fills some gaps in the literature by exploring the direct, mediating, and moderating relationships between package design, packaging attractiveness, buying intention, and WTP, especially in an emerging market such as Indonesia.
Practical Implications:
The vertical square-shaped packaging, written in a less formal font and highlighting a short and catchy slogan, is more financially promising for marketers to get a better price for local food products perceived as hedonic and bought impulsively on casual occasions. Furthermore, besides prominent package design elements such as font, color, size, material, and picture, packaging designers or marketing practitioners should consider other supporting factors, like shelf efficiency.
... Que peut-elle nous révéler sur les mouvements sociaux? Si des recherches anthropologiques se sont interrogées sur le sens et les fondements de ces écrits (Fraenkel, 2007), la sociologie ne s'est pas encore pleinement saisie de la force démonstrative de ce matériau : au-delà d'un usage illustratif, sa mobilisation comme matériau sociologique à part entière est paradoxalement encore rare, en dehors de quelques travaux ciblés (Truc, 2006;Gerbaudo, 2012;Knight, 2015). Pour encourager un tel développement, cet article propose une réflexion sur les potentiels épistémologiques, les défis méthodologiques, et les apports analytiques de ce matériau d'enquête. ...
... Certes, cette forme d'écrit y est régulièrement mobilisée, mais plutôt en petit nombre, de façon illustrative et en complément d'autres matériaux. Cependant, ce vide relatif est en passe de se combler : ces dernières années, quelques enquêtes ethnographiques mobilisent les slogans comme matériau d'analyse à part entière, pour approcher des mouvements ciblés comme le mouvement social iranien de 2009 (Gheytanchi et alii 2010), le mouvement antiaustérité en Grèce (Knight, 2015) ou encore le mouvement pro-démocratique de Hong-Kong en 2014 (Veg, 2016). L'attention se porte également sur les écrits au sein des réseaux sociaux au sein des mouvements post-2008, en explorant par exemple le rôle des tweets contestataires (Gerbaudo, 2012(Gerbaudo, , 2015. ...
Cet article explore la portée sociologique et comparative des slogans et écrits protestataires pour l’analyse des mouvements sociaux. Il montrera comment cette méthode peut contribuer à développer une meilleure compréhension des identités collectives, des émotions et des revendications portées au sein des contestations contemporaines. Il revient tout d’abord sur les enjeux théoriques, éthiques et méthodologiques que posent la collecte et l’analyse des écrits protestataires au sein de la sociologie des mouvements sociaux. Il explore ensuite différentes façons d’exploiter leur richesse expressive et leur potentiel comparatif, que ce soit par l’analyse textuelle ou qualitative. Pour ce faire, il s’appuie sur l’expérience et les résultats d’une enquête internationale sur les mouvements sociaux juvéniles de la seconde décennie du 21ème siècle, dans laquelle cette méthode a été mobilisée à grande échelle pour identifier et comparer les grammaires fondamentales de ces contestations post-2008. Cette enquête s’est appuyée sur la collecte par observation directe de ces « mots de la colère » - écrits, slogans, et pancartes- portés au sein de 7 mouvements sociaux ayant eu lieu de 2011 à 2019 : les « Indignés » à Madrid (2011-2012), le mouvement étudiant à Santiago du Chili (2011-2012), le « Printemps Erable » à Montréal (2012), le « mouvement des Parapluies » à Hong-Kong (2014), le mouvement « Nuit debout » à Paris (2016), la marche pour le climat à Montréal (2019), et le mouvement pro-démocratique de Hong-Kong (2019).
... The ratification of the first Memorandum in 2010 eventually brought more and more people to the streets and to the occupation of Syntagma Square. 7 In the summer of 2011, during several consecutive days of protests against the austerity measures taken by the government to deal with the economic crisis, the slogan 'Bread, education and freedom: the Junta did not end in 1973' appeared in Syntagma Square occupied by the Greek Indignados (Theodossopoulos 2013;Knight 2015;Kornetis 2016). ...
‘We want bread, education and freedom’ is an ethnographic experiment that traces and weaves together the unfolding of multiple crises in Greece in the mid-2010s. An ethnographically informed snapshot of a visit to the squatted hotel City Plaza in Athens, the piece unfolds by exploring the polysemy and versatility of the 1973 slogan ‘Bread, education, freedom’ and how it has been reappropriated and re-signified over time to make sense of the 2010 economic crisis and later, of the so-called refugee crisis. While the text pulls together historical events, political discourses and personal reflections, the graphics capture the Hotel City Plaza’s dense affects and lay bare those tensions, ambiguities and ambivalences that are often hard to verbalise and make sense of. Altogether this piece configures an unfished, raw and sensorial journey through the struggles of reconciling political belonging, positionality and intellectual commitment to anthropology.
... Mankekar, 2004). 3 Read on this and more in the works of Aranitou (2014), Athanasiou (2018), Bampilis (2018), Dalakoglou (2013), Gkintidis (2018), Herzfeld (2011), Kallianos (2018), Kirtsoglou (2020), Knight ( , 2013Knight ( , 2015a, Theodossopoulos (2013), Vasilopoulou and Halikiopoulou (2015). ...
... Einen weiteren Aspekt hiervon analysiert Daniel Knight, wenn er insbesondere das Verhältnis von offiziellen Narrativen und Gegennarrativen, ebenfalls im Kontext der griechischen Finanzkrise, thematisiert. 60 In Erzählungen über Brot, Bildung und Freiheit verdichten sich Anspielungen auf kollektive Erfahrungen wie auf die griechische Hungerkrise, auf die Antidiktaturproteste und werden darüber besonders wirksam, wohingegen Versuche zentraler politischer Akteure, mit Grosserzählungen über Selbstdisziplin und Sparen als Tugend Sparmassnah-men zu legitimieren, persifliert werden. Diese Gegennarrative sind insbesondere deshalb so erfolgreich, weil sie Massnahmen der Troika und Prozesse der Europäisierung einordnen in historische Narrative etwa über die deutsche Besatzung oder die Zeit der Diktatur. ...
Narrative über Europa, ob sie sich positiv oder negativ, euphorisch oder skeptisch zu Prozessen der Europäisierung und der europäischen Integration verhalten, sind alltäglich und lassen sich nicht ohne Weiteres durch Erzählangebote der Politik beeinflussen oder gar kontrollieren. Der Beitrag beschäftigt sich mit dem gewöhnlichen und alltäglichen Erzählen über Europa aus Sicht der Empirischen Kulturwissenschaft. Am Beispiel von euroskeptischen Narrativen soll gezeigt werden, wie populäre Narrative über EUropa über Alltagsquellen und Alltagspraktiken analysierbar werden und wie kritischen Einstellungen zu EUropa in alltäglichen Kontexten nachgegangen werden kann.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
Explores the role of morality in social movements
Discusses timely topics such as movements focusing on refugee solidarity, male privilege
Provides methodologically and theoretically diverse contributions from multiple social science disciplines
This book is open access, which means that you have free and unlimited access.
... Ιδιαίτερα τα εμβληματικά αμπέλια (η περίφημη "ρετσίνα Αττικής" -παραδοσιακή ονομασία) μειώθηκαν κατά 52%, ειδικά στην εκτεταμένη περιοχή του νέου αεροδρομίου». 17 Σημαντική, αν και περιφερειακή στη συνολική του απόπειρα, είναι η συνεισφορά του Knight (2015aKnight ( , 2015b προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση, ειδικά όταν συζητά με τους πληροφορητές του στα Τρίκαλα τους τρόπους διαχείρισης των άτυπων κήπων τους (βλ. την περίπτωση της Φανής στο Knight 2015a: 237). ...
Η "ιερά προστασία" των συντεχνιών, των επαγγελματικών ενώσεων και των συνδικάτων στο χριστιανικό κόσμο είναι μια παράδοση που αρχίζει στο Μεσαίωνα και επιβιώνει στον 21ο αιώνα. Η παράδοση είναι συνυφασμένη με την οργάνωση και λειτουργία αυτών των ενώσεων καθορίζοντας την κοινωνική τους θέση στο ευρύτερο κοινωνικό περιβάλλον και εξελισσόμενες παράλληλα με αυτό. Έτσι, ειδικά στην Ελλάδα, διαπιστώνουμε μια πολιτιστική συνέχεια με την "Εορτή της Εικόνας", που διατηρείται από τις συντεχνίες, τα συνδικάτα και τις επαγγελματικές ενώσεις στην ιστορική τους εξέλιξη. Η «Εορτή της Εικόνας " συνέβαλε στο να διατηρήσουν οι συντεχνίες και τα επαγγελματικά συνδικάτα ένα διακριτό όσο και σημαντικό ρόλο στην κοινωνική, οικονομική και πολιτική ζωή του τόπου τους, Βοήθησε ταυτόχρονα στο να λειτουργούν ως μηχανισμοί επαγγελματικής και κοινωνικής συνοχής. Η περίπτωση της Αργολίδας μας βοηθάει στην εξέλιξη της έρευνας, η οποία παραμένει ανοιχτή σε μελλοντικούς εμπλουτισμούς με νέα στοιχεία.
The “sacred protection” of guilds, professional associations and trade unions in the Christian world is a tradition that begins in the Middle Ages and continues to 21th century. The tradition intertwined with these associations defined its social position in the wider social environment and evolved in parallel with it. We certify a cultural continuity with the “feast of the image”, maintained by the guilds, unions and professional associations, in their historical development, especially in Greece. The “feast of the image” allowed guilds and professional unions to maintain an important social, economic, political, cultural role and to function as mechanisms of professional and social cohesion. The case of Argolida will help us to proceed with the research, which remains open, and to enrich it.
La «protection sacrée» des guildes, des associations professionnelles et des syndicats dans le monde chrétien est une tradition qui commence au Moyen Âge et survit au 21e siècle. La tradition est liée à l'organisation et au fonctionnement de ces associations en définissant leur statut social dans l'environnement social plus large et en évoluant parallèlement avec celui-ci. Ainsi, en particulier en Grèce, nous constatons une continuité culturelle avec la «fête de l'icône», conservé par des guildes, des syndicats et des associations professionnelles dans leur évolution historique. La «fête de l'icône» a contribué à maintenir aux guildes et aux syndicats professionnels un rôle distinct et important dans la vie sociale, économique et politique de leur pays et, en même temps, aidant à agir en tant que mécanismes de cohésion professionnelle et sociale. Le cas de l’Argolide, nous aide au développement de la recherche, qui reste ouverte à un enrichissement futur avec de nouveaux éléments.
... Ιδιαίτερα τα εμβληματικά αμπέλια (η περίφημη "ρετσίνα Αττικής" -παραδοσιακή ονομασία) μειώθηκαν κατά 52%, ειδικά στην εκτεταμένη περιοχή του νέου αεροδρομίου». 17 Σημαντική, αν και περιφερειακή στη συνολική του απόπειρα, είναι η συνεισφορά του Knight (2015aKnight ( , 2015b προς αυτή την κατεύθυνση, ειδικά όταν συζητά με τους πληροφορητές του στα Τρίκαλα τους τρόπους διαχείρισης των άτυπων κήπων τους (βλ. την περίπτωση της Φανής στο Knight 2015a: 237). ...
... In sum, if social and political turbulence (thus when the common doxa is fragmented into contested imaginaries) has always been a particularly fertile ground for the surfacing of graffi ti, it is especially in the current 'times of crisis' that political graffi ti are an important source for understanding how people experience the conditions of undesirable social change and the structures of feeling that lie behind a crisis-ridden world, capturing issues of oppression, unveiling social inequalities, and expressing passionate and aff ective responses (e.g. Argenti 2007;Knight 2015). Political graffi ti may reveal the politics of public visibility (Campbell 2003) used by new social movements and protesters in their eff orts to maintain, empower and materialize their own identities, narratives and aesthetics, perform contentious politics and infl uence social experience (Zaimakis 2016: 80). ...
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
This article focuses on student activism as an important site for the formulation and exploration of ethical dilemmas intrinsic to activist engagement across difference. In recent years, there has been a marked upsurge in student mobilization against inequality and social injustice within universities and in wider society. By drawing on ethnographic fieldwork material generated with left-wing student activists in New Zealand in 2012 and 2015, the article investigates how two different student activist networks, in their struggles for equality and justice, navigate ethical dilemmas around inclusion and exclusion and balance universal moral claims against a sensitivity to situated ethical complexities and locally embedded experiences and values. While sharing the goal of fighting inequality, the two networks differ in their emphasis on the creation of ‘dissensus’ and ‘safe spaces’ in their network, their university and in wider society. The article draws upon two interconnected strands of theories, namely, debates about deliberative democracy, including questions of universal accessibility and inclusion/exclusion, and theories around ethics as a question of living up to universal moral imperatives (deontology) or as embedded in everyday negotiations and cultivations of virtues (virtue ethics). Inspired by Mansbridge, it proposes that central to radical student activism as an ethical practice is the ability to act as a (subaltern) counter public that not only ‘nags’ or haunts dominant moralities from the margins but also allows for the cultivation of spaces and identities within the activist networks that can ‘nag’ or haunt the networks’ own moral frames and virtues and goad them into action and new democratic experiments.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
This chapter presents three interviews with three influential voices in the field of social movement and civil society studies, namely, those of Doug McAdam, Jeffrey Alexander, and Nina Eliasoph. They all share their perspectives on social movements’ role in society’s moral development, the role of morality internally in social movements, and the role of morality for social science as a practice. In addition, they each discuss the moral foundations and implications of three global contentious struggles: Doug McAdam discusses the background and implications of the 2021 riot at Capitol Hill as related to a global right-wing backlash protest cycle. Jeffrey Alexander discusses the cultural and moral significance of the #MeeToo movement and how it demonstrates the potentials of a global civil sphere. Finally, Nina Eliasoph discusses how the climate crisis presents itself as unimaginable in the sense that it will change everyone’s way of life so profoundly that we cannot imagine what the future may be like and suggests that prefigurative communities is one way activists can approach such a political issue.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
The aim of the chapter is to develop an analytical framework for studying the moral dimension of countermovements, which despite obvious significance for movement mobilization is rarely considered in countermovement theory. We argue that Axel Honneth’s theory of recognition can be used to develop an analytical framework that allows for grasping not only the moral dimension of struggles between social movements and countermovements but also moral divisions within countermovements. According to Honneth, social struggles stem from perceived misrecognition in relation to a set of moral meta-values that form the basis of legitimate claims in Western society: love, equality, and achievement. These meta-values can be understood differently in concrete areas of political struggle, and activists from different camps tend to make quite different interpretations. With this approach, it is possible to analyze countermovements’ moral claims in relation to social movements’ societal values and norms, and whether and how different strands within a countermovement make different types of moral claims.
We demonstrate the usefulness of the analytical framework by applying it to the division between feminism and anti-feminism and the division between varieties of anti-feminism (the Christian Right movement, the mythopoetic men’s movement, the men’s rights movement, and the manosphere). What emerges is a picture of the interrelationship between feminism and anti-feminism that is more complex than the common designation of progressive versus reactionary movements. It is clear that the different strands of anti-feminism relate morally in partly different ways to feminism. They all react against what is understood as misrecognition of men as a result of feminism, but the types of moral claims and their specific emphasis on them vary.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
This chapter provides two contributions. On the one hand, it argues that morality is a mine field for sociologist as they lack the analytical tools to judge what is moral and what is not. Yet, historical sociology has shown that morality is bound to culture, and accordingly culture and cultural practices should gain the center stage of the sociological work on morality. Further on, we claim that social movements scholars can show that specific contentions directly relate to major political cleavages where major debates about moral issues are staged.
Our second contribution offers an empirical example of such a research agenda. Using original survey and interview data on pro-migrant’s rights activists and environmentalists, we show that activists from these two groups form a common community—the moral voicing community. They share an understanding of the social problems they are committed for. Activists from both groups judge as immoral when specific social or cultural groups lack basic rights or suffer from environmental devastations and interpret these assessments through a prism of injustice. Finally, we show that these shared meanings on our living-together are continuously constructed through a specific relational mechanism. Indeed, ongoing and direct conversations are necessary to maintain those shared views and to ultimately sustain their activism.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
The chapter analyzes emotional expressions and corresponding moral dimensions in messages posted on the Chinese social media Weibo, and the participation character of public responses online, modeling their emergence and trajectories, and explaining the conditions that are necessary for them to evolve. Through statistical and qualitative interpretative analyses of a sample of observed emotions of Weibo posts over the course of 26 days in the Quangang carbon nine leak incident, as online environmental activism in 2018, we reveal that (1) different emotions exert miscellaneous effects on participation behaviors; (2) the same emotion would have disparate effects on different types of participation behaviors; and (3) the occurrence of moral dimensions especially promoted the generation and expression of activists’ emotions, which were magnified and strengthened through their spread on Weibo. Emotional expressions and their moral dynamics have shaped, but also been shaped by, the nature of the event and specific sociopolitical context and experience. The implications advance the understudied complexity between emotions, morality, and political participation behaviors in online activism in the authoritarian context.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
Lately, several studies have added crucial knowledge to our understanding of social movement participation by demonstrating its processual nature and how it relates to individual-level movement outcomes. Still, moral factors like values remain understudied. This paper develops a model of relationships between two types of value predispositions—self-transcendence and conformity—and differential participation in humanitarian activities, political protest and civil disobedience and their consequences for attitudinal changes of loss of institutional trust and an altered view of refugee policies. We use cross-sectional survey data from the mobilisation of the Danish refugee solidarity movement, which was revitalised in response to the 2015 refugee crisis. The main finding is that values, in accordance with our theoretical expectations, mainly influence attitudinal outcomes mediated by contexts of different kinds of movement activities. Conformity relates to participation in non-contentious humanitarian support activities that do not relate to any attitudinal outcomes. The non-conform and self-transcendent respondents participate to a higher degree in contentious political protest and civil disobedience, which relates to a loss of trust in the political institutions. The results suggest that heterogeneity of values and contexts of activism within a movement have implications for social movements’ role in the struggles for society’s fundamental morality, individual-level biographical outcomes of activism and movements’ internal processes related to collective identity.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
In this chapter, focusing on the position of the concept of morality, we briefly review the evolution of the field of social movements from the first formulations of the phenomena of protest, mass, and collective action in classical sociology, through the formation of social movement studies as proper field of research in the 1970s, to its contemporary state. We argue that while morality was central to the classical tradition’s understanding of movements, it lost prominence when the field was established, and still today, morality does not receive much attention. There are, of course, notable exceptions like the work of Jeffrey Alexander, Hans Joas, and the new social movement tradition in Europe. Relatively recently, morality has received increasing attention from scholars studying movements from the perspective of culture. We discuss the role of morality in three of the most prominent theories in this tradition, namely, collective identity, frame alignment, and emotion theory. We argue that they all present promising avenues for developing our understanding of morality and movements while we also point to limitations and inadequacies in each theory or the way they have been applied. We then turn to the constructive work of reorganizing the concept of morality’s relationship with civic action and social movement by developing three dimensions of morality that we argue which are of particular relevance to social movements: selves in interaction , rationalization and justification , and culture and tradition . We trace each dimension from its origin in moral philosophy through its formulation in classical sociology and finally into contemporary theories of civic action. Before closing, we reflect on how the different dimensions intersect and can be applied to the analysis of contemporary empirical cases of social movements and political protest.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
The concluding chapter of the book points to research agendas that have emerged from the contributions to the volume on movements and morality. It does not sum up each contribution, since an introduction to concepts, methods, and applications can be found in the introductory Chap. 1 . Instead, the chapter identifies six lacunae in social movement studies that have become apparent in the pages of the book. A first lacuna is related to the bias in focus on left-wing groups, a second on the causal effects of morality, a third foundational lacuna pertains to the relationship between social science and moral philosophy, a fourth to how we perceive of morality and time, a fifth to the global diffusion of moral claims, and finally a sixth lacuna relates to reflections on the dilemma of universal moral claims versus particular identities and situations.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
Adding to the growing literature on social movements as knowledge and theory creators, this chapter wants more social movement research to focus on the content of the political theories created by social movements , as an outcome of their morality. This chapter argues that prefigurative social movements create political theory through the interplay of their internal and external communication, their organization, and in their discussions of how and why to change the world: They are prefiguring political theory through their cognitive praxis. The chapter demonstrates how the literature on prefigurative social movements and Ron Jamison and Andrew Eyerman’s concept of cognitive praxis, combined with a decolonial feminist approach to knowledge and theory, provides space for the political theory of social movements within social movement literature. This theory is inherently political as it is aimed to be a (temporary) guide toward the kind of world the movements want to see and argues why the world should look like that.
The chapter briefly outlines how a Cartesian approach to science prevents us from viewing theory based on lived experience as theory, even though all theory is based on lived experience, and thereby explains why we have not taken the knowledge and theory created by social movements seriously for so long. To recognize social movements as political actors, we need to engage with the concepts, policy proposals, critiques, or new institutions that they are creating, and not only the mechanics around creating them. Consequently, we need to recognize social movements as the authors of the knowledge and theory they create and not take credit for “discovering” it. Lastly, from a decolonial approach, we should recognize that social movement research is relational and that the research process should involve the social movements themselves to make sure they also benefit from it, and view them as colleagues who are sharing their knowledge with us. Moving away from the more Cartesian view of science requires a decolonization of the entire research process, and in particular rethinking what this means in terms of authorship, ownership, and credit.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
Far-right grassroot organizations were early adopters of the internet and social media and have been using it to spread their ideologies, mobilize people and network since the 1990s. With the increased usage of social media, their communication style has naturally changed. Due to the interactive nature of social media, the far-right groups started to communicate in a savvy style based on meme and DIY aesthetics. This style allows these groups to blurry the line between serious and irony (Shifman, L., Memes in Digital Culture . Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2014) but also between facts and misinformation (Klein, O., The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies 154–179, 2020). There is a burgeoning body of literature investigating the way and for what purposes such organizations use the internet in which the researchers look particularly on memes (Klein, O., The Open Journal of Sociopolitical Studies 154–179, 2020) but also humour (Billig, M., Comic racism and violence. In S. Lockyer, & M. Pickering (Eds.), Beyond a joke. The limits of humor (pp. 25–44). New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005a; Billig, M., Laughter and ridicule. Towards a social critique of humor. London: SAGE Publications, 2005b). However, not many studies explored the link between humour and morality. The aim of this exploratory study, in which humour is viewed as a means of claims making and negotiation of political views, is to deepen the knowledge of how humour in memes produced and reproduced by far-right organizations can serve as a tool for constructing a moral order. To do so, I analysed memes used on the far-right Facebook page run by Czech organization Angry Mothers which engage in anti-Islam and anti-gender activism. Based on Michael Billig’s (2005) distinction between rebellious and disciplinary humour, I argue that the organization used rebellious humour to present themselves as an alternative to mainstream media and resistance to the alleged dictatorship of liberal elites and disciplinary humour to put minorities (both sexual and ethnic) “in their place”.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
This chapter investigates the role of axiological drivers in solidarity activism with refugees. It examines how universal value orientations denote normative and relational orientations of care and posits that refugee solidarity activism is driven by the activists’ universal caring orientations to all vulnerable groups. Overall, the chapter illustrates how universal value orientations and moral commitments shape and orient political activism with refugees based on common ideational solidarity projects. These conclusions are based on the analysis of data from a cross-national EU survey conducted in 8-EU countries between 2016 and 2017. Findings substantiate that axiological drivers, namely, universal value orientations and moral commitments, increase the predicted probability for engagement in refugee solidarity activism. Lastly, this chapter supports that in addition to attitudinal affinity and organisational embeddedness, refugee solidarity activism is a product of axiological drivers.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
The chapter maps out the elite of the early Danish temperance movement and shows how distinct moral elites within the movement interpreted the cause according to their respective value frames while integrating the emerging disease frame of alcoholism. Theoretically, it argues for introducing the thus far estranged perspectives of elite studies and framing approaches to each other. The concept of moral elite is consequently introduced and defined as an elite that is rich in the resources on which moral authority is built, here limited to educational resources, organizational resources, and publications. The chapter applies a mixed methods design. First, social network analysis (SNA) is applied to a unique dataset comprising biographical information on 28 temperance leaders found in the Danish Who’s Who. The analysis reveals three distinct clusters within the temperance elite. Analyzing texts by the most prolific authors shows that each of the three clusters has a distinct profile: an elite dominated by medical doctors and theologians who articulate a traditional value frame according to which medical doctors and pastors carry a responsibility for the community – a responsibility that is expanded through philanthropy and specialized institutions; a revivalist elite of theologians and laymen who pursue a revivalist Holiness and civil society frame emphasizing faith’s healing abilities and the importance of organizing beyond the national church; and an organic elite that represented small farmers and workers and pushed an Enlightenment frame of direct democracy, rule of law, and education. The second part of the analysis shows how each elite cluster integrated the “alcoholism as a disease” belief frame in their value frames: traditional elites as a cause for institutionalization, revivalist elites as a reason to bolster the resilience in the population through faith, and the organic elite as a reason to promote self-care and education. In the final sections of the chapter, I tease out how the moral elite perspective may have implications for social movement research, especially in terms of holding movement elites accountable.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
The introductory chapter argues why there is a need for a book on movements and morality and how this volume meets this need. It introduces the twofold purpose of the book: insights into the moral foundations of current civic struggles and political conflicts and developing theoretical, empirical, and methodological approaches to studying morality in movements. Then a review of the development of the field of social movement research reveals how morality is treated fragmentarily, which leads to a discussion of the terminological tempest of morality and an introduction of the three moral dimensions that structure the book: selves in interaction , rationalization and justification , and culture and tradition . The contributions to the volume are introduced according to these three dimensions, and a final section points to the methodological creativity and diversity that characterizes the volume, attesting to the fruitfulness of a research agenda centered on movements and morality.
... She distinguished between humour directed outside the group in the forms of tactics and frames and the humour that was used inside movement in regards to leadership, collective identity and emotional labour. Knight (2015) showed how ironic humour was used in slogans as a reaction to neoliberal measures in Greece and how it questioned the relationship between wealth and democracy and reframed the political debate. ...
Much scholarship on social movements builds on (American) pragmatist ground. However, Boltanski and Thévenot’s (French) pragmatist theory of justification has received less attention. The theory promises a way to bridge between American pragmatist social movement studies and theories about universal human values and repertoires of engagement, such as Shalom Schwartz’. Upon presenting and discussing the French theory of justification, the chapter sets out to assess its analytical usefulness in relation to a national survey on civic engagements in local urban greenspaces in Denmark. The survey questionnaire includes measures for each of the ‘justificatory regimes’ distinguished by the theory. However, contrary to expectations, the results indicate a strong tendency for all eight justificatory regimes to correlate positively. Moreover, an index combining the eight measures into one variable correlates strongly with civic engagement in local urban greenspaces. On this basis, it is suggested that the measures capture a more conventionally situated American pragmatist ‘concern’ for greenspaces. In conclusion, the theoretical as well as methodological implications of studying concerns rather than justifications are discussed.
... As often happened during my fieldwork in Athens between 2015 and 2017, when the economic crisis was at its heights, today's wildfires are addressed with some bitter irony: there's indeed nothing to be burned in Syros and anywhere else in Greece, as there was nothing left "to eat" back then. The wildfires would extinguish themselves as the economic crisis would eventually exhaust itself: the former out of no land to burn and the latter out of no money left to "be eaten" (Knight 2015). ...
Short graphic ethnography about Athens' social clinics of solidarity and their grassroots provision of medicine.
... Another example is then Greek deputy-prime minister Theodoros Pangalos telling reporters in 2010 "Mazi ta fagame" (together we ate it) (Knight, 2015, p. 230). Knight (2015) further discusses the notion (and limitations) of collective responsibility in the Greek financial crisis. Greece likewise scores in the 10th percentile of ethnic fractionalization, but again scored in roughly the 50th percentile of implementation of all conditions and the 90th percentile of hard conditions. ...
Do ethno-linguistic divisions in a country hamper the implementation of IMF-supported programs? We construct a new measure of implementation and compliance with IMF programs approved during the 1992–2014 period covering 104 countries. Using several measures of diversity, we find that higher levels of ethno-linguistic and cultural fractionalization affect the probability of successful implementation of IMF conditions. Our results show that diverse preferences and coordination failures due to ethnic and cultural diversity undermine the successful implementation of IMF programs. Furthermore, we find that ethno-linguistic fractionalization weakens the implementation of ‘ hard ’ IMF conditions relative to ‘ soft ’ conditions. Our findings also show that ethno-linguistic divisions do not affect the implementation of IMF conditions in autocracies as opposed to democracies. These findings are robust to addressing endogeneity concerns using an instrumental variable approach and to a number of alternative specifications, data sets, and approaches.
... He argues that those slogans are not only about identifying political responsibility for the present conditions of uncertainty in Greece but also about reminding people that such conditions can be addressed and overcome. 12 The views of Albanian migrants converge with those of Greek migrants living in the United Kingdom and the USA (Knight 2015b) and Panama (Theodossopoulos 2013), who believe that their compatriots in Greece are wasting their money on entertainment and other 'irrational' economic behaviour (Knight Albanians in this narrative, as in the previous one, are aware that the Greek 'crisis' has affected their lives; in particular, the reduced wages in the Corinthian labour market has motivated them to mobilize 'acquaintances' in order to get additional work elsewhere. Generally, they tend to view their past experiences of the 'crisis' in Albania as an antidote that makes them more resilient in the current situation in Greece. ...
This article looks in a diachronic perspective at the labour conditions and precarity of contemporary Albanian immigrants in Greece. The discussion examines past cultural strategies and current new tactics to address immigrants' 'cultural' approaches to different 'crises' and look at how they have either remained stable or have changed over time. Using the case study of Albanian immigrants who work 'seasonally' in the city of Corinth and live in the wider region, the discussion analyses the way in which Albanians handle their social networks; in particular, it focuses on the shifting relevance of old and new networks in finding a job. The discussion considers the declining relevance of the old Albanian social networks that helped them to find a job in Greece during the 1990s; they now consider the members of these networks as potential competitors. In contrast, the Albanian immigrants who have settled in Greece have built new networks, specifically with Greek regional employers, using the relationships that they have developed with Greek nationals. The article shows how Albanians trigger a wider network of 'acquaintances' with other employers, which opens up job opportunities in various contexts and concludes that immigrants tackle modern economic and labour challenges by transforming their own cultural strategies.
... In sum, if social and political turbulence (thus when the common doxa is fragmented into contested imaginaries) has always been a particularly fertile ground for the surfacing of graffi ti, it is especially in the current 'times of crisis' that political graffi ti are an important source for understanding how people experience the conditions of undesirable social change and the structures of feeling that lie behind a crisis-ridden world, capturing issues of oppression, unveiling social inequalities, and expressing passionate and aff ective responses (e.g. Argenti 2007;Knight 2015). Political graffi ti may reveal the politics of public visibility (Campbell 2003) used by new social movements and protesters in their eff orts to maintain, empower and materialize their own identities, narratives and aesthetics, perform contentious politics and infl uence social experience (Zaimakis 2016: 80). ...
In the last decades, in fact, different incidents, events, and social movements challenging the ruling political powers have had the epicentre of their political struggle on urban streets, where new strategies of mobilization and communication have suddenly germinated. This includes the various forms taken by the so-called ‘Arab Spring’; the protests against increases in public transport ticket prices, and against Brazil hosting the football World Cup (‘Anti-Cup’); the expression of the Occupy movement around the world; and the anti-austerity demonstrations in Greece, Spain, Portugal, and elsewhere. In many of these protests, the ‘right to the city’ has often been upheld, providing a global dimension to the local discontents of the protesters. Intentionally or not, graffiti have always to do with negotiating and reworking the spatial and aesthetic normativity of urban space and experience. In this sense, they may be said to constitute a veritable site of crisis in its most profound sense, as well as a critical site in itself: that is, a site in which the conditions of possibility of urban space, publicness and experience are potentially subjected to radical reformulation, and so are put in crisis. Even prior to conveying any critical ‘message’ or aesthetic ‘form’, graffiti are critical – and thus in nuce political – in so far as materializing a rupture with respect to the sociocultural and aesthetic normativity of the street, and thus of everyday urban life at large, thereby embodying a challenge to the given order and its aesthetic, legal and moral consensus.
... They also generate an affective proximity to the uprising, violence of the past, and present injustices as a form of simultaneity. Such interventions cannot be understood solely as articulations of "cultural proximity" as theorised by Knight (2012Knight ( , 2015aKnight ( , 2015b) whose work draws on Serres' notion of time to explore the ways in which the crisis provokes a reconceptualisation of people's relationship to time. This notion of cultural proximity posits that events once considered culturally or temporally distant are now perceived as close, 'bringing together many histories into a simultaneous moment of experience' (Serres, 1995, p. 88 in Knight, 2012Knight & Stewart, 2016, p. 6). ...
This article explores creative remembrance practices within the 39 and 40th commemoration of the 1973 Athens Polytechnic uprising. It draws on interviews, cultural artefacts, and fieldnotes to focus on tactile forms of storytelling with an attentiveness to their potential to generate different affective encounters in a context of prolonged crisis, and rising neo-fascist, structural and police violence. The article discusses the ways in which the annual coming together on the site of the uprising creates a meaningful, intergenerational space of encounter, a time for reflection and sharing discontinuous histories of resistance, oppression, and solidarity. I propose that the specificities of the annual coming together can be considered a “space of transmission,” a concept that brings recent scholarship in urban geography on storytelling and spaces of encounter into dialogue with Walter Benjamin's work on tradition. This article contributes to urban studies through highlighting the importance of sustaining “spaces of transmission” in the context of wider situated practices of everyday urban politics.
... Indeed, protest discourse, public assembly, and collective action play important linguistic, performative, and aff ective roles in challenging dominant political rhetoric. In building movement momentum, protest organizers were able to develop and transmit highly critical discourse through signage-making in order to capture the public's attitude toward the government's political and economic management (see also Knight 2015). ...
Following mass demonstrations in response to the country's 2008 economic collapse, a dynamic civil society has emerged in Iceland focused on democratic reform through rewriting the constitution. Th is article demonstrates how, in the absence of the new constitution that was promised by the government, protesters are pursuing an unfinished project of reform by holding small, routinized protests founded on an ethic of empathic solidarity (samkennd). By exploring the aesthetic elements of these meetings, I argue that the protest site is being used to highlight and condemn ongoing government transgression while also providing a space to prefigure a future free of political corruption. To this end, explicit signage is shown to be reshaping political discourse while also extending (and denying) kin bonds between protesters.
... With recent findings suggesting that 13% of the Greek population and a staggering 47.7% of households below the poverty line are unable to meet weekly recommendations for meat, fish, and vegetable consumption (Hellenic Statistical Authority 2015), it is no wonder that food has received renewed interest. In recent ethnographic accounts of crisisridden Greece, food features as a trope of resistance against austerity and neoliberalism (Knight 2015), as a vehicle for political commentary and critique (Sutton et al. 2013), and as an epicentre of emergent distribution networks belonging to the sphere of 'solidarity economy' (Rakopoulos 2014a;2014b). With its long history in the distribution of charitable meals, the contribution of the Greek Orthodox Church towards the alleviation of crisisgenerated food deprivation has also received considerable attention (Makris and Bekridakis 2013;Kravva 2014). ...
The ‘Bank of Love’ is a soup kitchen administered by the Orthodox Church in the town of Xanthi, Northern Greece. Currently operating amidst economic crisis, the Bank of Love occupies approximately fifty volunteering women who cook and distribute 150 meals to the poor daily. Despite the widespread proliferation of the egalitarian and counter-hegemonic notion of ‘solidarity’, these female cooks do not subscribe to its values. Crucially, however, neither do they embrace the hierarchical idioms of ‘philanthropy’, often understood to occupy the other side of the spectrum. In an effort to depart from analytical dichotomies and designatory taxonomies, which might label the cook’s work as acts of either solidarity or philanthropy, this article uses the multivalent and open-ended concept of ‘engagement’. I pay particular attention to two radically different ‘modalities of engagement’. The first modality is contingent on notions of domesticity and occupies these cooks through their identities as women, housemistresses, and mothers. The second modality appropriates the discourses of volunteerism to transform these women into autonomous agents who enter the public sphere in the name of a good cause. I argue that engaging with ‘engagement’ may not only facilitate an understanding of processes of social transformation vis-à-vis articulations of gender, space, and affect, but also offer insights into the construction of the very object(s) of engagement. The Bank of Love bespeaks of a crisis symbolically constructed through the nexus and obligations of kinship, and of a crisis that provides space for the performance of autonomy and empowerment.
... Graffiti murals are sites of articulating, challenging, and re/affirming diverse political visions of the social and political past and future [see figure 1]. In similar fashion to slogans and anti-austerity sentiments in Greece, as captured by Knight's (2015) analysis of "wit in economic crisis," graffiti and slogans in Pristina are used to question the power relations between state institutions and citizens. As interventions and "as public images, slogans provoke complex emotional responses, acquiring their own histories of appropriation and commentary … . ...
This contribution introduces an exercise in epistemic justice to the study of everyday nationalism in post‐conflict, transnational (local and international) encounters. It explores how everyday nationalism, in often unexpected and hidden ways, underpinned a cocreational, educational project involving several local (Albanian) and international (British based) university students and staff collaborating on the theme of post‐war memory and reconciliation in Kosovo. The set‐up resembled a microcosm of transnational social encounters in project collaborations in which the problem of nationalism, typically, is associated with one side only: here, the Kosovars. Guided by Goffman's (1982) social interactionist framework, the study employs selected participants' paraethnographic and auto‐ethnographic reflections of their project experiences and practices after the event in order to trace the everyday workings of mutual assumptions and constructions of a national self and other for all sides involved. In this, it explores how the project participants' asymmetric positioning within a wider, global context of unequal power relations shaped their vernacular epistemologies of belonging and identity. It thereby excavated what otherwise taken‐for‐granted criteria can become relevant in such local/international social encounters as reflected upon and how the enduring power imbalances underpinning these might best be redressed.
... 6 Irony and humour as 'acceptable forms of confronting authority' have been extensively explored in anthropological literature (Fernandez and Huber 2001;Boyer and Yurchak 2010;Klumbyte 2011). For a specific discussion on ironic slogans, see Haugerud (2010), Knight (2015). ...
This article discusses how the reproductive rights slogan ‘my body my choice’ – which functions as a carrier of feminist cultural memory – was weaponised when it gained traction in anti-vaccine movements that appropriated it. During the global Covid-19 pandemic, transnationally coordinated groups associated with the far right and characterised by nationalist and pro-life values started using the protest slogan to politicise their resistance to local lockdown restrictions and vaccine and mask mandates. The article shows that their use of the slogan was a hostile form of mnemonic appropriation and analyses the discursive mechanisms used to discredit the reproductive rights movement. It demonstrates that when slogans become carriers of cultural memory, they can be used in claim-making by movements on opposing sides of the political spectrum. It concludes that protest memories can be used politically both in the advancement of social movement causes as well as in the backlash against those causes.
The article analyses the relationship between sovereignty and capitalist extraction using assemblage theory. It discusses dialectical variants of assemblage theory as tools to think about the entangled relations that make economic actors. The article proposes two concepts, calculative bordering and differential entanglement, to make sense of processes that responsibilised the Greek government for the 2010s Eurozone crisis and invoked its sovereignty as a tool for extraction value for financial markets. The article contributes to anthropological theorisations of sovereignty by showing how, as a political concept, sovereignty can serve to responsibilize governments to secure accumulation and ensure capitalist extraction. The article thus aims for a refined understanding of the changing relation between extraction and sovereignty and processes of fiscal responsibilization as a performance of sovereignty.
As a discipline deeply rooted in the turbulent nation-building days of “the long 19th century,” archaeology is closely entangled with political discourse. Modernity, however, has also brought about a breed of poli- tics carried out through the use of archaeology, and the past’s grip on the ways we perceive our present. This paper is not a discussion of the political aspects of archaeological praxis in contemporary societies but an exploration of politics carried out through an archaeological way of thinking and acting. I call this breed of archaeologically informed politics over life “Archaeopolitics.” My main case studies come from present-day Greece, and South-Eastern Europe at large, though – as my first example is bound to show – what I am describing here may be observed in many other regions of the world and in a timeframe much wider than the later 20th – early 21st centuries.
en This article explores the relationships between the body, gendered dispossession and agency under conditions of austerity in Portugal. Drawing from ethnographic research undertaken in 2015 and 2016 in a Portuguese post-industrial town, this article focuses on the examination of how concrete physical experiences and social anxieties framed working-class women’s experiences and explanations of the austerity-led crisis of social reproduction and the ways through which the body was mobilised as a metaphor to make sense of forced and disruptive reconfigurations of the means of livelihood reproduction. It examines how working-class women resorted to embodied practices, knowledges and moralities as a way of fulfilling provisioning pursuits, and to assert rights, entitlements and aspirations. Throughout this article, women’s bodily experiences and embodied practices, knowledges and moralities are the main point of entry from which to reflect on the gendered, contested and negotiated nature of the austerity economic and political project. This article argues for the relevance of addressing the mobilisation of historically embodied legacies of gendered and classed dispossession in the making of ‘actually existing austerity’.
L’austérité corporeal: la dépossession, l’agencéité et les luttes genrées pour la valeur au Portugal
fr Cet article explore les relations entre le corps, la dépossession genrée et l’agence dans des conditions d’austérité au Portugal. S’appuyant sur une recherche ethnographique entreprise en 2015 et 2016 dans une ville postindustrielle portugaise, il se concentre sur l’examen de la façon dont les expériences physiques concrètes et les angoisses sociales ont encadré les expériences et les explications des femmes de la classe ouvrière sur la crise de la reproduction sociale induite par l’austérité ; et les façons par lesquelles le corps a été mobilise comme une métaphore pour donner du sens aux reconfigurations forcées et perturbatrices des moyens de reproduction des moyens de subsistance. Il examine également la manière dont les femmes de la classe ouvrière ont eu recours à des pratiques, des connaissances et des moralités incarnées pour satisfaire leurs besoins de subsistance et pour faire valoir leurs droits et leurs aspirations. Tout au long de l’essai, les expériences corporelles des femmes et les pratiques, connaissances et moralités incarnées constituent le principal point d’entrée à partir duquel réfléchir à la nature sexuée, contestée et négociée du projet économique et politique d’austérité. L’article défend donc la pertinence d’aborder la mobilisation des héritages historiquement incarnés de la dépossession de genre et de classe dans l’élaboration d’une «austérité réellement existante».
This collection highlights the diverse and complicated ways that violence becomes axiomatic, namely through political rhetoric, epistemological impositions, and colonial legacies. Considering how axiomatic violence emerges from events of rupture as well as slow-moving structural inequalities, authors interrogate both the novelty and mundane quality of the current political moment. Approaching violence as axiomatic expands the conceptual lexicon for discussing how rhetorics, metaphors, and prescriptive assumptions can be inherently violent and become normalised, losing their event-like status. Through the routinisation of the extraordinary, truths become indisputable. Axioms combine neoteric and foundational violence to lend legitimacy to apparently incontestable categories of domination, disenfranchisement, and epistemological governance.
This article presents an ethnography of the no-middlemen markets in Athens, where producers from all over Greece sell foodstuffs directly to consumers. No-middlemen markets offer an interesting lens through which to view the political foodways created in Athens, reflecting a wider changing landscape of shifting responsibilities for better food futures. I draw from theories on moral economy and reflect on the body of literature on alternative food networks and civic food networks. I argue that in Athens-in-crisis, citizen-producers and citizen-consumers step in and renegotiate the dynamics and power relations between civil society, the market and the State. By doing so they rebalance the dependence of the Greek agriculture from the State and EU protectionism, as well as from the food industry's oligopoly of middlemen, moving towards a more economically sustainable model. They also work towards reconnecting rural and urban foodways and reconstructing social relations around food. As such, they reshape and protect the identities for urban and rural populations alike, provide a contrast to the abstractions of neoliberal politics, resilience to the crisis and ultimately protect the foundation of the Greek society. To this end, this article offers a useful lens through which to explore the diverse ways responsibility is enacted and the social food politics at times of crisis, leading to a better understanding of the complexities and processes of resistance to the crisis by urban and rural people.
This article analyzes nonprofessional trading in derivatives during the Great Spanish Recession. It depicts playful engagements with speculative forms of credit and debt on the part of everyday people facing mass unemployment. The article calls into question contemporary theories of debt that characterize it as inherently destructive or inherently productive. My main argument suggests that credit‐debt dyads are constant sites of manipulation, negotiation, and improvisation informed by multiple registers of affect, knowledge, and value. In showing how play and playfulness arise in the field of finance, my research sheds light on extractive business models that exploit socioeconomic uncertainties as well as labor reforms advanced in times of recession. My ethnography traverses a variety of social terrains ranging from social media to brokerage firms, trading courses, stock exchanges, and self‐help workshops in order to complicate further the anthropological work on financialization. Without denying the negative and damaging effects of financialization, I focus on the contradictory ways in which ordinary citizens become financial subjects.
This working paper discusses pro-Troika social critiques in everyday life in Greece. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (2014-2017) conducted in the town of Volos, on the eastern shore of mainland Greece, this paper traces largely unanalysed forms of widespread critique. As literature has more extensively covered opposition and resistance to the restructuring of the Greek state and economy under the austerity regime, this focus allows for a nuanced analysis of social reactions to current processes of neoliberal restructuring. I argue that the perspective adopted must not only take into account power relations and overlapping moral frameworks but also refrain from strategic essentialisations of power and resistance. My analytical focus in this paper is on 'ambivalence', as a way to understand the complexity of moral orders and to capture the contradictions and dilemmas my interlocutors routinely accommodate, as they navigate economic hardship. This perspective on social critique and ambivalence is important in two ways-1) theoretically-as it refuses power binaries and instead refocuses on hegemony and ambivalence in the analysis of moral orders in capitalism; 2) ethnographically-to complement and contrast the current emphasis on resistance and solidarity in the anthropological literature on the Greek crisis.
Cambridge Core - Social and Cultural Anthropology - The Anthropology of the Future - by Rebecca Bryant
This chapter is based on an ethnography of the Vega Baja del Segura (Valencia in southeast Spain).1 It is an area of small- and medium-size family firms, some of which, however, are among the more profitable in their sector (shoewear). Following recent sociological and economic models, the area has been described as an industrial district, in reference to its dynamic and flexible economic structure and its entrepreneurial culture. The industrial district or economic region model was first defined for northern Italy as an optimistic developmental model based on the relevance of a shared culture and the use of noneconomic social networks. This model is increasingly acquiring a hegemonic role in the agendas of institutional policymakers including Eurocrats or World Bank advisers. Now the concept of "social capital" is highlighted as the main asset to be developed in order for development policies to succeed. Social capital refers to a vague idea of the importance of embeddedness (as defined by Mark S. Granovetter rather than Karl Polanyi) for a successful economic organization. The dominant model of economic development now incorporates the importance of "noneconomic" social relations that are deemed increasingly necessary for the local establishment of dynamic entrepreneurial practices and flexible relations of production.
From the worldwide rise in food prices to the harassment of a Tunisian produce vendor whose self-immolation set off the Arab Spring, food has been a key catalyst of the world-transforming protests of 2011. This focus section explores the diverse ways that contemporary movements for social and political change, from the Arab Spring to the Mediterranean Summer to the Occupied Autumn, have drawn on food in framing their transformative practice. Going beyond a simple equation of food and identity we examine the role food has played in metaphors, daily revolutionary practices and as a key subject of worldwide concern. Thus we focus on the politics of food in its symbolic, social and material dimensions. Papers combine ethnographic research and textual analysis in some of the diverse locations of current protests to give a sense of how food can provide a unique window into understanding the startling events of 2011. The papers presented here were originally presented as a panel at the Association for the Study of Food and Society Conference in New York in June 2012.
As economic crisis deepens across Europe people are forced to find innovative strategies to accommodate circumstances of chronic uncertainty. Even with a second multi-billion euro bailout package secured for Greece, the prospects of a sustainable recovery in the near future look bleak. However, crisis has also created dynamic spaces for entrepreneurial opportunism and diversification resulting in social mobility, relocation, shifts in livelihood strategy and a burgeoning informal economy. Although economic systems are currently undergoing radical reassessment, social demands such as competitive consumption remain. Opportunities for investment in renewable energy programmes, especially photovoltaics, are also pervasive. By considering cases of business opportunism and livelihood diversification in relation to Max Weber's concept of wertrational and notions of uncertainty, this article brings new perspectives to strategies of negotiating the worst economic crisis in living memory.
In many contexts of Greek social life, Scotch whisky has coincidentally become a symbol of “Greekness,” national identity, modernity, and the middle class. This ethnographic study follows the social life of Scotch in Greece through three distinct trajectories in time and space in order to investigate how the meanings of the beverage are projected, negotiated, and acquired by various different networks. By examining the mediascapes of the Greek cultural industry, the Athenian nightlife and entertainment, and the North Aegean drinking habits, the study illustrates how Scotch became associated with modernity, popular music and culture, a lavish style, and an antidomestic masculine mentality.
This historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's “Regional Economies,” takes up the question of how to understand the growing alienation ordinary working people feel in the face of globalization. Combining oral histories with a sophisticated and nuanced structural understanding of changing political economies, the chapters in this book examine the growing divide between government and its citizens in a region that has in the last four decades been transformed from a primarily agricultural economy into a primarily industrial one. Offering a form of ethnography appropriate for the study of suprastate polities and a globalized economy, the book contributes to our understanding of one region as well as the way we think about changing class relations, modes of production, and cultural practices in a newly emerging Europe. The chapters consider how phenomena such as the “informal economy” and “black market” are not marginal to the normal operation of state and economic institutions, but are intertwined with both.
Proust’s famous madeleine captures the power of food to evoke some of our deepest memories. Why does food hold such power? What does the growing commodification and globalization of food mean for our capacity to store the past in our meals – in the smell of olive oil or the taste of a fresh-cut fig? This book offers a theoretical account of the interrelationship of culture, food and memory. Sutton challenges and expands anthropology’s current focus on issues of embodiment, memory and material culture, especially in relation to transnational migration and the flow of culture across borders and boundaries. The Greek island of Kalymnos in the eastern Aegean, where Islanders claim to remember meals long past – both humble and spectacular – provides the main setting for these issues, as well as comparative materials drawn from England and the United States. Despite the growing interest in anthropological accounts of food and in the cultural construction of memory, the intersection of food with memory has not been accorded sustained examination. Cultural practices of feasting and fasting, global flows of food as both gifts and commodities, the rise of processed food and the relationship of orally transmitted recipes to the vast market in speciality cookbooks tie traditional anthropological mainstays such as ritual, exchange and death to more current concerns with structure and history, cognition and the ‘anthropology of the senses’. Arguing for the crucial role of a simultaneous consideration of food and memory, this book significantly advances our understanding of cultural processes and reformulates current theoretical preoccupations.
People around the world are confused and concerned. Is it a sign of strength or of weakness that the US has suddenly shifted from a politics of consensus to one of coercion on the world stage? What was really at stake in the war on Iraq? Was it all about oil and, if not, what else was involved? What role has a sagging economy played in pushing the US into foreign adventurism? What exactly is the relationship between US militarism abroad and domestic politics? These are the questions taken up in this compelling and original book. In this closely argued and clearly written book, David Harvey, one of the leading social theorists of his generation, builds a conceptual framework to expose the underlying forces at work behind these momentous shifts in US policies and politics. The compulsions behind the projection of US power on the world as a "new imperialism" are here, for the first time, laid bare for all to see.
The subject of Vassos Argyrou's study is modernisation, as reflected in the changing nature of wedding celebrations in Cyprus over two generations from the 1930s to the present day. He argues that modernisation is not a secular, progressive process, that remodels the life of a society, ironing out local differences. Rather, it is a legitimising discourse. It is an idiom which Greek Cypriots employ to represent, and contest, relationships between social classes, old and young, men and women, city folk and villagers. At the same time, by involving modernisation, they are submitting to foreign standards, and accepting the symbolic domination of Europe.
No Billionaire Left Behind is a compelling investigation into how satirical activists tackle two of the most contentious topics in contemporary American political culture: the increasingly profound division of wealth in America, and the role of big money in electoral politics. Anthropologist and author Angelique Haugerud deftly charts the evolution of a group named the Billionaires—a prominent network of satirists and activists who make a mockery of wealth in America—along with other satirical groups and figures to puzzle out their impact on politics and public opinion. In the spirit of popular programs like The Colbert Report and The Daily Show, the Billionaires demonstrate a sophisticated knowledge of economics and public affairs through the lens of satire and humor. Through participant observation, interviews, and archival research, Haugerud provides the first ethnographic study of the power and limitations of this evolving form of political organizing in this witty exploration of one group's efforts to raise hope and inspire action in America's current political climate.
History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece explores how the inhabitants of a Greek town face the devastating consequences of the worst economic crisis in living memory. Knight examines how the inhabitants draw on the past to contextualize their experiences and build strength that will enable them to overcome their suffering.
Neoliberalism--the doctrine that market exchange is an ethic in itself, capable of acting as a guide for all human action--has become dominant in both thought and practice throughout much of the world since 1970 or so. Writing for a wide audience, David Harvey, author of The New Imperialism and The Condition of Postmodernity, here tells the political-economic story of where neoliberalization came from and how it proliferated on the world stage. Through critical engagement with this history, he constructs a framework, not only for analyzing the political and economic dangers that now surround us, but also for assessing the prospects for the more socially just alternatives being advocated by many oppositional movements.
In this collection leading anthropologists provide a comprehensive yet highly nuanced view of what it means to be a Greek man or woman, married or unmarried, functioning within a complex society based on kinship ties. Exploring the ways in which sexual identity is constructed, these authors discuss, for example, how going out for coffee embodies dominant ideas about female sexuality, moral virtue, and autonomy; why men in a Lesbos village maintain elaborate friendships with nonfamily members while the women do not; why young housewives often participate in conflict-resolution rituals; and how the dominant role of mature married householders is challenged by unmarried persons who emphasize spontaneity and personal autonomy. This collection demonstrates that kinship and gender identities in Greece are not unitary and fixed: kinship is organized in several highly specific forms, and gender identities are plural, competing, antagonistic, and are continually being redefined by contexts and social change.
Provides a concise and up-to-date introduction to the modern history of Greece, beginning with the first stirrings of the nation movement in the late 18th century. The author highlights the differences and similarities with the rest of Europe in terms of political and social influences, and their outcomes. Following an introduction and a chapter on the emergence of the Greek state under Ottoman rule, the c150 yr of independent nationhood are divided into four periods: nation building (1831-1922), occupation (1923-1949), the civil war legacy (1950-1974), and the consolidation of democracy (1974-1990). A brief epilogue considers changes in the 1990s, and appendices present details of: leading figures in modern Greek history, the royal family, presidents, socio-geographical and political trends, and key dates from the 15th century onwards. -P.Hardiman
The presentism of political-economic ideologies like neoliberalism has always frustrated scholars who seek to understand culture. Even anthropologists who are singularly oriented toward the everyday of ethnography confront the power of historical myth and memory in the lives of individuals and communities. To suggest that new forms of organization wipe the slate clean of long-standing investments is at least as untenable as the proposition that such newness is, necessarily, widely desired or freely chosen. The subject of the city brings such complexities to the fore. The nitty-gritty of urban existence (survival, economic activity, pressing political problems) often inspires a deeply empirical approach to questions of dwelling. But the city-space is one in which people continually negotiate their relationships to the past, present, and future; and these processes imbue a place with richly symbolic potential. For scholars and critics, then, the methodological imperative of the city is more than observation. Providing all sorts of text and narrative, the city asks us to develop creative reading practices that can process a range of often contradictory world-views. The city caught in the forces of neoliberalism, actively, and perhaps defensively, constructing a layered temporality, presents a particularly vivid situation in which to read contradiction. Copyright
This superb historical and ethnographic study of the political economy of the Vega Baja region of Spain, one of the European Union's "Regional Economies," takes up the difficult question of how to understand the growing alienation ordinary working people feel in the face of globalization. Combining rich oral histories with a sophisticated and nuanced structural understanding of changing political economies, the authors examine the growing divide between government and its citizens in a region that has in the last four decades been transformed from a primarily agricultural economy to a primarily industrial one. Offering a new form of ethnography appropriate for the study of suprastate polities and a globalized economy, Immediate Struggles contributes to our understanding of one region as well as the way we think about changing class relations, modes of production, and cultural practices in a newly emerging Europe. The authors also consider how phenomena such as the "informal economy" and "black market" are not marginal to the normal operation of state and economic institutions but are intertwined with both.
In the context of the global economic crisis, world capitalism today may be on the verge of another restructuring. Neoliberalism"the dominant approach to government around the world since the 1980s"may be coming to an end, but its effect on social and political life will long be felt. Based on the premise that markets are more efficient than lawmakers and regulators at responding to popular demands, neoliberal reforms were pushed by powerful national and transnational organizations as conditions of lending and trade. Governments turned to the private sector for what were formerly state functions. But when citizens were refashioned as consumers, there were also unintended social consequences. thnographies of Neoliberalism collects original ethnographic case studies of the effects of neoliberal reform on the conditions of social participation, such as new understandings of gender roles, the commodification of learning, a growth in satirical protest against corporate power, and the restructuring of local political institutions. Carol J. Greenhouse has brought together scholars in anthropology, communications, education, English, music, political science, religion, and sociology to focus on the emergent conditions of political agency under neoliberal regimes. This is the first volume to address the implications of neoliberal reform on people's self-understandings as social and political actors. The essayists consider both the positive and negative unintended results of neoliberal reform, and the theoretical contradictions within neoliberalism, illuminated by circumstances on the ground in Africa, Europe, South America, Japan, Russia, and the United States. With an emphasis on the value of ethnographic research in understanding neoliberalism's effects around the world in our own times, Ethnographies of Neoliberalism uncovers how even in more prosperous times people realize for themselves the limits of the market, and act accordingly. Copyright
The war between Greece and Turkey ended in 1922 in what Greeks call the Asia Minor catastrophe, a disaster greater than the fall of Constantinople in 1493, for it marked the end of Hellenism in the ancient heartland of Asia Minor. In 1923 the Treaty of Lausanne ratified the compulsory exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey, involving the movement of some 1.5 million persons. Well over one million Greek refugees entered the Greek state in two years, increasing its population by about a quarter. Given the far-reaching consequences for both Greece and Turkey, surprisingly few studies exist of the numerous people so drastically affected by this uprooting. Over half a century later a large section of the urban refugee population in Greece still claimed a separate Asia Minor identity, despite sharing with other Greeks a common culture, religion, and language. Based on the author's long-term fieldwork, this ethnography of Kokkinia - an urban quarter in Piraeus - reveals how its inhabitants' sense of separate identity was constructed, an aspect of continuity with their well-defined identity as an Orthodox Christian minority in the Ottoman Empire. This rare study of an urban refugee group fifty years after settlement provides new insights into the phenomenon of ethnicity both structural and cultural. In detailed analysis of values, symbolic dimensions, and of social organization the book illustrates the strength and efficacy of cultural values in transcending material deprivation. The reprint of this study in paperback is particularly timely, marking as it does the 75th anniversary of this major event in the Eastern Mediterranean. Renee Hirschon Philippakis is currently Research Associate of the Refugee Studies Programme, University of Oxford, and Honorary Research Fellow of Oxford Brookes University.
The Greek crisis has become the most eminent example of neoliberal economic meltdown over the past five years. In towns across Greece people try to come to terms with drastic changes in their everyday lives and grapple with the complex mixture of politics, economy, history and culture that informs crisis experience. This paper addresses recurring themes in crisis narratives from the town of Trikala, central Greece, within the context of local history and economy. Narratives condense historical experience, fashion forms of cultural proximity and facilitate polytemporality. As people recall the era of cifiliks (great estates), the Great Famine of 1941-43, and the stock market collapse they construct a sphere of collective suffering and solidarity based on adversity whilst simultaneously critiquing economic systems. Historical events significantly inform present crisis experience in Trikala, adding local nuances to national and global problems. Three prominent themes can be identified in daily narratives that help locals comprehend the socioeconomic hardship: famine, suicide and colonisation. These recurrent themes form the bases for collective suffering, encouraging solidarity in the face of socioeconomic turmoil. In narrative, actors move seamlessly from past to present, offering a critique of economic systems by means of historical embodiment.
Neoliberalism is commonly viewed as an economic doctrine that seeks to limit the scope of government. Some consider it a form of predatory capitalism with adverse effects on the Global South. In this groundbreaking work, Aihwa Ong offers an alternative view of neoliberalism as an extraordinarily malleable technology of governing that is taken up in different ways by different regimes, be they authoritarian, democratic, or communist. Ong shows how East and Southeast Asian states are making exceptions to their usual practices of governing in order to position themselves to compete in the global economy. As she demonstrates, a variety of neoliberal strategies of governing are re-engineering political spaces and populations. Ong’s ethnographic case studies illuminate experiments and developments such as China’s creation of special market zones within its socialist economy; pro-capitalist Islam and women’s rights in Malaysia; Singapore’s repositioning as a hub of scientific expertise; and flexible labor and knowledge regimes that span the Pacific.Ong traces how these and other neoliberal exceptions to business as usual are reconfiguring relationships between governing and the governed, power and knowledge, and sovereignty and territoriality. She argues that an interactive mode of citizenship is emerging, one that organizes people—and distributes rights and benefits to them—according to their marketable skills rather than according to their membership within nation-states. Those whose knowledge and skills are not assigned significant market value—such as migrant women working as domestic maids in many Asian cities—are denied citizenship. Nevertheless, Ong suggests that as the seam between sovereignty and citizenship is pried apart, a new space is emerging for NGOs to advocate for the human rights of those excluded by neoliberal measures of human worthiness.
It is now common in Europe and Japan to consider the United States rhe economic model to emulate. With their economies continuing along the road of prolonged stagnation, mainstream commentators in Europe and Japan are busily seeking out the causes of their economies' malaise by comparing their micro-structures with those of the United States. Even tile recent savage downturn in the United States seems unlikely to alter tins trend. In Europe, just as in Japan, prestigious commentators incessantly extol America's comparative advantages: the flexibility of its labor market and its individualist (as opposed to corporatist) entrepreneurial culture (which, we are told, is deeply entrenched in the collective U.S. mind). Such narratives have become the foundation of mainstream explanations of the relative dynamism of the U.S. economy, in contrast to the unwieldy miracle economies of yesteryear. This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.
Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.
This article considers the meaning of work for women (and some men) in the olive harvest in a Greek island community. Household economic priorities and a spirit of cooperation permeate the harvesting practice in which women (and men) perform hard manual labour. Women protagonists of the olive harvest explain their commitment to this work by reference to their desire to participate in collective household undertakings. Corporate, family-oriented understandings of self-interest are well attested in the anthropological literature on Greece. I present the harvesting practice, its logic and the particular division of labour in it, as an efficient investment in household relationships.
The Greek economic crisis resonates across Europe as synonymous with corruption, poor government, austerity, financial bailouts, civil unrest, and social turmoil. The search for accountability on the local level is entangled with competing rhetorics of persuasion, fear, and complex
historical consciousness. Internationally, the Greek crisis is employed as a trope to call for collective mobilization and political change. Drawing on ethnographic research conducted in Trikala, central Greece, this article outlines how accountability for the Greek economic crisis is understood
in local and international arenas. Trikala can be considered a microcosm for the study of the pan-European economic turmoil as the “Greek crisis” is heralded as a warning on national stages throughout the continent.
When compared to the extensive historiography on missionary activity, the anthropology of missions is a relative newcomer, emerging as such in the context of the recent critique of the colonial system. In view of the importance of historiographical literature in outlining the subject,
on the one hand, and of the impact of the decolonization of the African continent on anthropology, on the other hand, my purposes in this essay are, firstly, to examine how the historiography of colonial America and of African colonialism has handled the subject of missions; secondly, to describe
the role of missionary activity in the historiographical debate in the context of the crisis of colonialism; and, lastly, to analyze how post-colonial critique has given rise to a new anthropology of missions.
Michael Herzfeld describes what happens when a bureaucracy charged with historic conservation clashes with a local populace hostile to the state and suspicious of tourism. Focusing on the Cretan town of Rethemnos, once a center of learning under Venetian rule and later inhabited by the Turks, he examines major questions confronting conservators and citizens as they negotiate the "ownership" of history: Who defines the past? To whom does the past belong? What is "traditional" and how is this determined? Exploring the meanings of the built environment for Rethemnos's inhabitants, Herzfeld finds that their interest in it has more to do with personal histories and the immediate social context than with the formal history that attracts the conservators. He also investigates the inhabitants' social practices from the standpoints of household and kin group, political association, neighborhood, gender ideology, and the effects of these on attitudes toward home ownership. In the face of modernity, where tradition is an object of both reverence and commercialism, Rethemnos emerges as an important ethnographic window onto the ambiguous cultural fortunes of Greece.
