debt – To Archeio

Media and the Economic crisis of the EU: The ‘culturalization’ of a systemic crisis and Bild-Zeitung’s framing of Greece

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:41 +0000

This article critically studies the hegemonic discursive construction of the EU’s current (2012) economic crisis, as it is articulated by political and economic elites and by mass media. The study focuses on the political economy of the particular crisis and through the critical concept of reification, the study emphasizes the hegemonic naturalization of the economic crisis by the “free market” economistic ideology. The article problematizes the positioning of Greece as the “crisis epicentre” in Europe, understanding Greece as a scapegoat and as a laboratory where political strategies of capitalist restructuring of the EU are performed. Through the frame analysis of Bild-zeitung’s headlines on the coverage of crisis-struck Greece, the article discusses a) the “culturalization” of the crisis and the diversion from a structural public debate on the global economic crisis b) the disciplinary function of crisis’ publicity, related to social control and the production of new, neoliberal social subjectivities c) the alienating effect of the culturalist crisis discourses to transnational publics, resulting to the misrecognition of the ideological and structural reasons of the given crisis, the misrecognition of the effects of the crisis and crisis-politics in people’s lives, the misrecognition of popular socio-political struggles in countries worse struck by crisis politics, and the eclipse of transnational solidarity and identification to the common issues that European people in particular are facing.

We owe ourselves to debt: Classical Greece, Athens in crisis, and the body as battlefield

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:18 +0000

Since 2009, Greece has been hit by a severe economic recession followed by harsh austerity policies, gradual impoverishment, and ultimately social collapse. This article investigates the cultural landscape of the so-called ‘Greek crisis’, focusing on Athens,the nation’s capital, and the ways the crisis discourse employs biopolitical technologiesof dispossession and displacement in order to generate an intensified breed of body-politics. The article’s main case study is documenta 14, a blockbuster exhibition ofcontemporary art organized in Athens in 2017, seemingly elaborating on the ideasof debt – classical and modern – though in fact promoting neoliberal approaches topublic economy and life. The idea of ‘classical debt’, the article concludes, continuously reiterated by both Greece’s defenders as well as its most unforgiving critics, rather than acting as an emancipatory force, ends up producing a public consisting of silent bodies, trapped in highly romanticized discourses of the past and ultimately unable to defend themselves. This tension, however, also provokes narratives and gestures made of contradictions and ambiguity, difficult to map and monitor according to established research protocols.

Dispatches from the Greek lab: Metaphors, strategies and debt in the European crisis

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:16 +0000

This field note is a first attempt to reflect on the choreography of the European crisis from a psychosocial perspective. It focuses on the situation as it has been unfolding in one of the debtor countries of the South, namely Greece. After mapping a variety of metaphors, repertoires and strategies used to energise blame and guilt and thus legitimise the neoliberal policies implemented, it elaborates on the multiple functions of debt, articulating a biopolitical approach with Freudian and Lacanian theorisations of the superego. It also inscribes within this framework the current mutations in political domination.

Stretching money to pay the bills. Temporal modalities and relational practices of getting by in the Greek economic crisis

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:01 +0000

This article investigates the temporalities of ‘getting by’ amidst the ripple effects of economic deterioration in Volos, Greece. Through the case of Kalypso and her family, I argue for a relational framework in the study of temporal practices, and then discuss the significant material relations of the family. Faced with less than half of their previous income, Kalypso runs a general budget pool via e-banking that allows her to coordinate the temporal constraints of periodic and everyday bills. The effect is a drifting apart of temporal experiences in the family as well as tensions about the future. Temporal agency is shown to reside in the modalities of social relations and in corresponding practices.

“It wasn’t written for me”: Law, debt, and therapeutic contracts in Greek psychiatry

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:17 +0000

Since the international movement for patients’ rights began, law has played an ambiguous role in mediating conflicts over responsibility for the mentally ill. In Greece, this contention has been shaped by reforms designed to shift psychiatric treatment from custodial hospitals to outpatient settings, challenging patients to help care for themselves. This article addresses one of the normative techniques deployed by Greek therapists to foster patients’ responsibility in treatment: the therapeutic contract. By formalizing patients’ and therapists’ responsibilities to one other, contracts attach legalistic determinants to treatment that are said to have their own therapeutic efficacy. I examine the experiences of two patients in northeastern Greece who entered therapeutic contracts at moments of crisis in their treatment. Failures in these cases expose a conflict between the ethics of contract and the ethics of care. I argue that this conflict is intrinsic to the transactional model of public service relationships in liberal states.

The economic crisis seen from the everyday: Europe’s nouveau poor and the global affective implications of a ‘local’ debt crisis

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:13 +0000

The proliferating numbers of a new population of urban poor in the Western world—who I call here nouveau poor—is a phenomenon equally (if not more) significant as the emergence of the Indignados and Occupy movements, and calls for urgent attention from the part of critical urban studies. This phenomenon forces us to re-evaluate the analytical categories within which we study urban poverty (gender, age, ethnicity, marginality, etc.) and prompts us to focus on commonality, rather than difference, when it comes to collectively reclaiming the ‘right to the city’. Focusing on the political, social and affective consequences of the presence of nouveau poor on the streets of Athens, I argue that the shock waves that Greece’s nouveau poor send down Europe’s spine are partly due to the fact that Athens’ new ranks of beggars are not migrants, junkies, alcoholics or homeless; they do not fall in any of the familiar categories of the urban ‘other’ or ‘subaltern’. As they belonged, until very recently, to the mainstream aspiring middle classes, it is very difficult, if not impossible, to ‘other’ them, ignore them or dismiss them politically, or socially. The presence of Europe’s very own ranks of middle class-come-poor begs for a reconceptualisation of the link between urban theory and praxis.

From Indecision to Fast-track Privatisations: Can Greece Still Do It?

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:09 +0000

This paper explains how the collapse of growth after 2008, in combination with soaring public and external deficits, led to the escalation of Greek debt, while the government’s delay in responding to the crisis increased the cost of borrowing and necessitated the bail-out agreement with the IMF and the European Union. One year later, Greece is struggling to harness fiscal deficits amidst a deep recession and rising social tension. Debt sustainability has not yet been ensured and another tranche of loans has been negotiated under new terms and conditions, including higher taxes and extensive privatisations of public companies and property. The paper discusses the main failures of the bail-out agreement and why the lack of growth so far has undermined efforts at stabilisation. As an alternative, the paper suggests that with a modest return to growth, combined with fast-track privatisations, the prospects of debt sustainability improve substantially. In light of the recent debate on the European Stability Mechanism, the paper suggests that the bail-out facility should avoid the debt seniority condition, so that Greece could return to normal market borrowing after 2013 without raising new fears of ‘haircuts’ on private sector obligations