https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Thu, 30 Apr 2020 12:53:52 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/solidarity-the-egalitarian-tensions-of-a-bridge-concept/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:44 +0000 http://arc.local/items/solidarity-the-egalitarian-tensions-of-a-bridge-concept/ https://toarcheio.org/items/solidaritys-tensions-informality-sociality-and-the-greek-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:36 +0000 http://arc.local/items/solidaritys-tensions-informality-sociality-and-the-greek-crisis/ Continued]]> During times of crisis, economic practices organized on principles of reciprocity often arise. Greece, with the vibrant sociality pertaining to its ‘solidarity economy’, is a case in point. This article is premised on the idea that crises make contradictions in societies more visible. I suggest that a central contradiction is at play in Greece between informal and formalized economic activity, as demonstrated in the tension between the fluid features of ‘solidarity’ networks and the formalization proposed or imposed on them by state institutions. In Thessaloniki, the informal solidarity economy proves to be more efficient than the work of NGOs. Arguing that such economic activities are built around the rise of new forms of sociality rather than a tendency toward bureaucratization, the article contributes to anthropological understandings of solidarity and welfare, as well as their relation.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-solidarity-economy-in-the-greek-crisis-movementality-economic-democracy-and-social-reproduction/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:36 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-solidarity-economy-in-the-greek-crisis-movementality-economic-democracy-and-social-reproduction/ https://toarcheio.org/items/responding-to-the-crisis-food-co-operatives-and-the-solidarity-economy-in-greece-2/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:36 +0000 http://arc.local/items/responding-to-the-crisis-food-co-operatives-and-the-solidarity-economy-in-greece-2/ Continued]]> This article discusses a case of popular social response to imposed austerity and recession in Greece. It focuses on the antimiddleman movement in an Athens suburb. It also addresses the broader picture of the current Greek crisis, explaining how participants in this grassroots response extend their activity beyond food distribution, beginning to imagine modes of economic conduct and interaction different from those currently dominant in Greece. I explore their efforts to turn the food market they have established in Athens into a formal co-operative which links consumers in their neighbourhood directly to selected farmers through bonds of solidarity, and to work with others to create a network of similar co-operatives which will span the whole country. I argue that their endeavours strongly resemble the co-operativism and practical socialism advocated by important social theorists such as Mauss and Polanyi, and suggest that it may be important for the young activists in Athens to learn more about their ideas.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-crisis-seen-from-below-within-and-against-from-solidarity-economy-to-food-distribution-cooperatives-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:29 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-crisis-seen-from-below-within-and-against-from-solidarity-economy-to-food-distribution-cooperatives-in-greece/ Continued]]> Anthropological literature on crises and social and solidarity economies can benefit from integrated approaches that assess grassroots cooperatives formed during critical periods of capitalist recession. This article debates on why it is problematic to conceptualize the Greek crisis as exceptional and then examines the relationship between the solidarity economy and cooperatives and argues that the latter is a development of the former in the future plans of people struggling against the crisis being witnessed in Greece. It moreover makes a case for there being a need to pay more attention to the distribution sector. Its main aim is to point out how participants engaged in initiatives related to the solidarity economy tend to imagine that their activities are inspired by larger aims and claims than the immediate significance of their material actions. This is done by ethnographically analyzing organized social responses against crises through the rise of popular solidarity economies associated with distribution of food without middlemen.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/resonance-of-solidarity-meanings-of-a-local-concept-in-anti-austerity-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:29 +0000 http://arc.local/items/resonance-of-solidarity-meanings-of-a-local-concept-in-anti-austerity-greece/ Continued]]> Scholarly approaches to the Greek crisis usually centered on its political character, tackle it as “a state of exception” or emphasize its “exceptional” features. Departing from a discussion on the nature of the crisis, in this article I examine social reactions to “it,” focusing on grassroots economic activity. I undertake a case study of a “solidarity economy” movement and from there I explore the wider political repercussions of this activity that has appeared in contemporary Greece where grassroots social welfare projects are organized in order to address hardships in the actors’ livelihoods. In this way, I explore the meaning of solidarity, a term that has become ubiquitous in the public discourse of contemporary Greece. Through an ethnographic study of the activities of a movement that organizes anti-middleman food distributions in Greece, I argue that such activities not only tackle the immediate effects of the crisis but also pose a conscious, wider critique to austerity politics. Activists’ appeal to solidarity economies is informed by their aim to formulate more efficient distribution cooperatives in the future.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/responding-to-the-crisis-food-co-operatives-and-the-solidarity-economy-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:21 +0000 http://arc.local/items/responding-to-the-crisis-food-co-operatives-and-the-solidarity-economy-in-greece/ Continued]]> This article discusses a case of popular social response to imposed austerity and recession in Greece. It focuses on the antimiddleman movement in an Athens suburb. It also addresses the broader picture of the current Greek crisis, explaining how participants in this grassroots response extend their activity beyond food distribution, beginning to imagine modes of economic conduct and interaction different from those currently dominant in Greece. I explore their efforts to turn the food market they have established in Athens into a formal co-operative which links consumers in their neighbourhood directly to selected farmers through bonds of solidarity, and to work with others to create a network of similar co-operatives which will span the whole country. I argue that their endeavours strongly resemble the co-operativism and practical socialism advocated by important social theorists such as Mauss and Polanyi, and suggest that it may be important for the young activists in Athens to learn more about their ideas.

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