Streinzer, A. – To Archeio https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:01 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 Stretching money to pay the bills. Temporal modalities and relational practices of getting by in the Greek economic crisis https://toarcheio.org/items/stretching-money-to-pay-the-bills-temporal-modalities-and-relational-practices-of-getting-by-in-the-greek-economic-crisis/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:01 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/stretching-money-to-pay-the-bills-temporal-modalities-and-relational-practices-of-getting-by-in-the-greek-economic-crisis/ Continued]]> 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.

]]> ‘Let them be screwed by the Troika!’. Blame, shame and ambivalent pro-Troika social critique in Greece https://toarcheio.org/items/let-them-be-screwed-by-the-troika-blame-shame-and-ambivalent-pro-troika-social-critique-in-greece/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:00 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/let-them-be-screwed-by-the-troika-blame-shame-and-ambivalent-pro-troika-social-critique-in-greece/ Continued]]> 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.

]]> Doing economic relations otherwise https://toarcheio.org/items/doing-economic-relations-otherwise/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:23:58 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/doing-economic-relations-otherwise/ Continued]]> Recent scholarship on Southern Europe focuses on economic crisis and contestations of hegemonic economic and political arrangements. Solidarity features prominently in these accounts as a notion of opposition to austerity and recession. This article uses solidarity as an entry point, and then shifts attention to the everyday politics of its enactment in the TEM complementary currency network. The article presents three sets of challenges faced by network members: moral discourses around debt, disregard of communal labour and hierarchies created through economic inequalities among network members. The discussion of these challenges places resistance and solidarity in larger discussions about capitalist economies and hegemonic thought and practice that go beyond the discussion of solidarity in Greece and Southern Europe.

]]> Das Gerangel um die Extraktion. Wirtschaftsethnographische Betrachtungen zu Schuldverhältnissen in Griechenland https://toarcheio.org/items/das-gerangel-um-die-extraktion-wirtschaftsethnographische-betrachtungen-zu-schuldverhaltnissen-in-griechenland/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:23:57 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/das-gerangel-um-die-extraktion-wirtschaftsethnographische-betrachtungen-zu-schuldverhaltnissen-in-griechenland/