https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Thu, 30 Apr 2020 15:13:28 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/illuminating-austerity-lighting-poverty-as-an-agent-and-signifier-of-the-greek-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:52 +0000 http://arc.local/items/illuminating-austerity-lighting-poverty-as-an-agent-and-signifier-of-the-greek-crisis/ Continued]]> Light – whether natural or artificial – plays multiple roles in the home: both as a material enabler of everyday life and as a device for exercising a variety of social relations. The post-2008 Greek economic crisis has endangered those roles by limiting people’s ability to access or afford adequate energy services. This paper focuses on the enforced lack of illumination in the home, and the strategies and tactics undertaken by households to overcome this challenge. I connect illumination practices and discourses to the implementation of austerity, by arguing that the threat of darkness has become a tool for compelling vulnerable groups to pay their electricity bills. The evidence presented in the paper is based on two sets of interviews with 25 households (including a total of 55 adult members) living in and around Thessaloniki – Greece’s second largest city, and one that has suffered severe economic consequences as a result of the crisis. I have established that the under-consumption of light is one of the most pronounced expressions of energy poverty, and as such endangers the ability to participate in the customs that define membership of society. But the emergence of activist-led amateur electricians and the symbolic and material mobilization of light for political purposes have also created multiple opportunities for resistance.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/assessing-the-impact-of-the-economic-crisis-on-energy-poverty-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:24 +0000 http://arc.local/items/assessing-the-impact-of-the-economic-crisis-on-energy-poverty-in-greece/ Continued]]> The paper aims at assessing the impact of the economic crisis on energy poverty in Greece. It monitors the electricity consumption per capita, its relationship with the economic growth and its comparison with other European countries. Moreover, the paper provides new indicators and information, monitoring data related to the capability of people to pay their electricity bills, the power cuts made due to the economic crisis and the social policy of the government for sensitive social groups. Results show that the standard of living in Greece has been increased considerably compared to other countries and that people require time to respond to the new economic conditions and to change their habits. It provides evidence that the economic crisis has considerable effect on the electricity consumption and on the capability of people to pay their bills. However, the power cuts depict mainly the unwillingness of customers to continue paying bills for properties that they do not use or do not provide any revenue for them. The incapability of customers to pay the electricity bills on time, create serious liquidity problem for the Public Power Corporation, which enables the danger of transforming an energy poverty issue to an energy security issue

]]>