https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:12 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-new-populism-index-at-work-identifying-populist-candidates-and-parties-in-the-contemporary-greek-context/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:12 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-new-populism-index-at-work-identifying-populist-candidates-and-parties-in-the-contemporary-greek-context/ Continued]]> Interrogating available indexes from a discourse-theoretical point of view, this paper utilizes a reformulated populism index in order to identify populist parties. In particular, the index is applied in a candidate survey carried out in Greece in 2015. Findings indicate that this index allows for a clear differentiation between populist and non-populist parties. Based on candidate attitudes, SYRIZA and ANEL belong to the first group whereas New Democracy, PASOK and River to the second. The examination of additional survey items reveals a clear ideological division within the populist camp: right-wing populism is exclusionary, while left-wing populism more inclusive and pluralist.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/populism-anti-populism-and-crisis/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:10 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/populism-anti-populism-and-crisis/ Continued]]> This article focuses on two issues involved in the formation and political trajectory of populist representations within political antagonism. First, it explores the role of crisis in the articulation of populist discourse. This problematic is far from new within theories of populism but has recently taken a new turn. We thus purport to reconsider the way populism and crisis are related, mapping the different modalities this relation can take and advancing further their theorization from the point of view of a discursive theory of the political, drawing primarily on the Essex School perspective initially developed by Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe. Second, this will involve focusing on the antagonistic language games developed around populist representations, something that has not attracted equal attention. Highlighting the need to study anti-populism together with populism, focusing on their mutual constitution, we will test the ensuing theoretical framework in an analysis of SYRIZA, a recent and, as a result, under-researched example of egalitarian, inclusionary populism emerging within the European crisis landscape.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-people-in-the-here-and-now-populism-modernization-and-the-state-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:47 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-people-in-the-here-and-now-populism-modernization-and-the-state-in-greece/ Continued]]> The term ‘populism’ has gained renewed prominence in Greece during the Eurozone crisis, in both public and academic debates. In this article I conceptualize populism as a discourse of territorial and temporal particularism, which challenges the way a state has been incorporated into the international political and economic system. Based on this definition, I question whether oppositional discourses employed by partisan actors or official power are wholesale and genuine expressions of populism. Thus, I contest the notion that Greece failed due to populism. Instead I draw attention to a failure in the official legitimation of modernization by state elites that long preceded the crisis.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/youth-heterotopias-in-precarious-times-the-students-autonomous-collectivity/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:43 +0000 http://arc.local/items/youth-heterotopias-in-precarious-times-the-students-autonomous-collectivity/ Continued]]> Under the structural restraints of the current financial, social and political crisis, I examine the case of a collectivity of students in Greece as an alternative small-scale form of political and cultural action, and I explore its dynamics and limits. I claim that the ‘collectivity’ is a form of heterotopia, that is, a specific social and cultural space, which somehow reflects and at the same time distorts, unsettles or inverts other spaces. In particular, I seek to uncover the rituals, practices and mentalities produced by the participants of this youth cultural space, and to understand how new subjectivities and collectivities come into being. In this context, I discuss some of the relevant literature on youth political participation. Furthermore, I illustrate the debate about ‘autonomy’ and ‘hegemony’ within social and political theory today.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/muslim-immigrants-and-the-greek-nation-theemergence-of-nationalist-intolerance/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:22 +0000 http://arc.local/items/muslim-immigrants-and-the-greek-nation-theemergence-of-nationalist-intolerance/ Continued]]> Faced with claims for recognising religious diversity, liberal European democracies have shifted in the last 10 years towards a more restrictive view of integration. This paper seeks to make a contribution to this line of research on how European countries deal with migration-related ethnic and religious diversity today by investigating the case of a southern country, notably Greece. Greece is an interesting case to study: it has by now 20 years of experience as a host country, but still its migrant integration policies are under-developed. In addition Greece it is currently experiencing an acute economic crisis while irregular migration towards the country is on the rise. These developments have contributed to bringing migration on to centre stage in political discourse with a concomitant rise of racist and xenophobic discourses against migrants. This paper takes, as a case study, the public Muslim prayer that took place in several squares of Athens on 18 November 2010 as a peaceful protest against the fact that Athens still does not have a formal mosque. We use this event as an opportunity for interviewing social and political actors directly or indirectly involved in it on their views regarding migration, religious diversity and their accommodation in the Greek public space. We analyse their discourse on whether and under what conditions religious diversity, Islam in particular, should be tolerated or accepted in Greek society. We propose here the notion of ‘nationalist intolerance’ to make sense of Greek discourses and propose a dynamic understanding of tolerance and intolerance as concepts that do not emanate from abstract norms but are rather negotiated in specific contexts.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/images-of-crisis-and-opportunity-a-study-of-african-migration-to-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:22 +0000 http://arc.local/items/images-of-crisis-and-opportunity-a-study-of-african-migration-to-greece/ Continued]]> The economic crisis in Greece is becoming a way of life and it is affecting, among other things, the way the Greek society views immigration. Greek people are waking up to the reality that immigrants in the streets of big cities would not go back. The kind of economic state of emergency in need of all sorts of austerity measures the Greek society is entering, shockingly, brings about the fear even in liberal minds that the country cannot provide for all. In this paper I draw from my own newly conducted ethnographic study to explore two interconnected themes: the study of local aspects of integration of Sub-Saharan African migrants in the city center of Athens, Greece and the use of photographic images in ethnographic research. More specifically, the paper discusses the representations of difference via a series of contemporary street photographs depicting everyday life instances of African migrants in the city center of Athens. It thus creates a visual narrative of metropolitan life, which forms the basis for a discussion on three themes related to discourses on migrant integration in light of today’s economic crisis: a) the physical and social environment of marginalization, b) the migrant body, and c) the fear of the migrant.

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