https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:58:06 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/geographies-of-crisis-in-greece-a-social-well-being-approach/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:46 +0000 http://arc.local/items/geographies-of-crisis-in-greece-a-social-well-being-approach/ Continued]]> The most prominent ‘victim’ of the global financial crisis in 2007/2008 has been Greece, which is, even now, in the middle of an economic and social storm that is threatening its economic and social cohesion and its membership of the Eurozone. Using the social well-being conceptual framework as a benchmark and exploiting the literature of composite indicators, the paper aims to assess and measure the regional impact of the crisis in a systematic and comprehensive way. Differing from most of previous studies, both at national and international levels, this study is based on the assumption that the effects of the crisis go far beyond economics and create a social crisis strongly associated with significant human and social costs that might transform Greece’s regional status and threaten its regional well-being, probably in a very unequal way. The main finding of the analysis is that although all regions were severely affected by the dynamics and intensity of the crisis, some regions were more affected than others, leading to ‘winners’ and ‘losers’. From a policy point of view, the results of this study have serious implications for crisis management, recovery policy actions and a country’s social cohesion, especially in Greece where austerity policy measures not only imposed considerable cutbacks in regional development policies but also ignored the spatial dimension of the crisis.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-diverse-regional-patterns-of-atypical-employment-in-greece-production-restructuring-re-deregulation-and-flexicurity-under-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:33 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-diverse-regional-patterns-of-atypical-employment-in-greece-production-restructuring-re-deregulation-and-flexicurity-under-crisis/ Continued]]> Because the 2008/2009 crisis brought changes to global accumulation patterns and prompted further work flexibilization, European labor markets are accordingly being re/deregulated as a result of ‘flexicurity’ and are thus moving toward greater employment liberalization. Historically, atypical employment has been extensive in the Greek labor market, which has been characterized by fragmented labor security provisions and weak social welfare. However, since the country’s crisis-ensuing economic downfall, IMF/EU-induced measures have intensified reforms for ‘less rigidity and more employability’. This paper addresses the diverse pre- and post-crisis regional patterns of atypical employment in Greece, with a focus on temporary waged employment. Diversity is traced in regional industrial specialization and restructuring under recession. The industry- and region-specific impact on labor flexibilization trajectories is estimated by a new shift-share analysis method applied to permanent and temporary regional employment data between 2005 and 2011. The identified ongoing devaluation of employment is also addressed from an institutional aspect, centered on flexicurity-responding labor relations reforms. The geography of employment in Greece is becoming more uneven at the regional level as a result of ‘low-road’ flexibilization, considerable labor-market insecurity and different patterns of atypical labor use among different groups of regions. The emerging situation puts in question the validity of labor market liberalization and flexicurity policy.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/of-steel-and-strawberries-greek-workers-struggle-against-informal-and-flexible-working-arrangements-during-the-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:25 +0000 http://arc.local/items/of-steel-and-strawberries-greek-workers-struggle-against-informal-and-flexible-working-arrangements-during-the-crisis/ Continued]]> This paper studies workers’ resistance to the spread of informal and flexible employment patterns in Greece during the ongoing economic crisis. It focuses upon the spatial aspects of two strikes, the first by immigrant agricultural workers employed in the strawberry fields of Nea Manolada, in the Peloponnesus region, and the second by steelworkers employed at the Hellenic Steelworks SA in Aspropyrgos, in the Attica region. The paper analyses workers’ agency in both these cases, viewing it as a relational phenomenon strongly determined by the economic specificities of the sector to which workers’ employers belonged, by the workers’ ability (or not) to develop trans-local networks of solidarity and by the timing of the two struggles. We view the paper as a contribution to the growing body of Labour Geography research in two ways: (i) it speaks to how to theorise worker agency in a more nuanced manner; and (ii) it argues that, rather than viewing workers as simply social actors who are caught up in labour markets that are assumed to be structured by the actions of capital and the state (as per much economic theory), workers can actually play important roles in shaping how labour markets function and in resisting the tendency for precarious employment relations to spread across them.

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