2017 – To Archeio

Feeling the pulse of the Greek debt crisis: affect on the web of blame

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:52 +0000

This article examines the affective content of Greek media representations of the debt crisis, from 2009 to 2012. We analyze the content of opinion pieces from journalists, experts and public intellectuals published in Greek newspapers, and identify their affective tone towards political actors and institutions. We focus on anger, fear and hope, and identify blame attribution frames, which underpin the public’s trust and confidence in domestic and European Union institutions. This article contributes to the systematic understanding of the impact of the debt crisis as a traumatic event on public opinion, and considers its implications for attitudes towards European integration.

Χρέος, χρόνος της χρηματιστικοποίησης και διαδικασίες υποκειμενοποίησης. Κριτική του homo debitor

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:51 +0000

Η χρονικότητα της χρηματιστικοποίησης και η επανακωδίκωση της λογικής του χρέους. Κριτική της ηθικής του χρέους και της παραγωγής της χρεωμένης υποκειμενικοτητας, (Μ. Lazzarato, D. Graeber). /Στοιχεία του «καθεστώτος ιστορικότητας» μετά τον παροντισμό. /Οι αντιδιαγωγές/αντιπειθαρχίες των ‘χρεωμένων’ υποκειμένων.

The ‘Greferendum’ and the Eurozone crisis in the Danish daily press

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:44 +0000

This article presents a critical analysis of the Danish press coverage of the referendum called by the Left-led coalition government of Greece in July 2015, concerning the future of austerity policies. It focuses on the conservative daily press of Denmark, one of the ‘core’ EU countries, writing on developments in the periphery. Three main themes emerge in the study’s discourse analysis of Berlingske Tidende’s and Jyllands Posten’s coverage: ‘post-democratic realism’, ‘the upper-class gaze’, and ‘Orientalism and cultural racism’. The authors not only reveal the one-sided, elitist coverage by the rightwing papers at Europe’s centre but also point out how the principles of neoliberalism itself and the acceptance of austerity are being constantly reinforced by the media in a country like Denmark, which had previously been marked out for its more progressive welfare capitalism. Denmark’s turn to the Right (and to racism) alongside its biased coverage of the ‘Greferendum’ are examined here in the context of the way in which neoliberalism and its politico-social effects are now presented as both common sense and the only way forward.

Punitive inclusion: The political economy of irregular migration in the margins of Europe

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:21 +0000

Focusing on the treatment irregular migrants have received in Greece since the early 1990s, this article seeks to advance critical scholarship on how European countries have responded to migration from impoverished or otherwise disadvantaged parts of the globe over recent decades. The article first draws attention to ways in which purportedly exclusionary approaches to irregular migration control may be imperfect by design, insofar as restrictions are imposed on outflows to secure an exploitable workforce that serves important labour market needs and, by extension, dominant political interests in the ‘host’ state. Moving on to address the precise ways in which labour exploitation of irregular migrants is brought into effect, the article demonstrates how seemingly unrelated state policies and practices regarding matters of migration, welfare, employment and criminal justice, as well as certain manifestations of anti-migrant violence by non-state actors, may act in combination with one another to this end.

A new populism index at work: identifying populist candidates and parties in the contemporary Greek context

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:12 +0000

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.

European populist parties in government: How well are voters represented? Evidence from Greece

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:11 +0000

In this paper we focus on the two populist parties, one radical left and one radical right, that have formed a coalition government after the January 2015 elections in Greece: SYRIZA and Independent Greeks (ANEL). Using data from the Greek Candidate Study 2015 and the Greek Voter Study 2015 we study the congruence between party voters and party elites for these two parties, also comparing them with mainstream, non‐populist parties. Employing a slightly modified ‘many to many’ approach, we measure congruence on a variety of issues (economic policy, austerity, Euroscepticism, immigration, law and order) and ideological divides (left/right, populism/anti‐populism) in order to assess the factors explaining the paradoxical resilience of Greek populism in power. The evidence generated can help us account for the trajectory of political antagonism in the Greek context throughout 2015 and in drawing some broader conclusions and challenges for future populism research.

Vicissitudes of emotions and political action during the Greek crisis

apostolos — Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:02 +0000

Action readiness is considered a central property of emotions in most psychological theories. Emotions are the engine of behavior. They are the motivating, directing, prioritizing function of the brain, and impel to an immediate reaction to challenges and opportunities faced by the organism. Nevertheless, under sociopolitical malaise, emotions do not always lead to action. People leave in societies characterized by particular emotional cultures, climates, and atmospheres that set the background to what emotions are felt under which circumstances. The impact of an emotion depends on how relevant, that is, emotionally significant is the event for the individual; on the implications of the event for the person’s well-being and immediate or long-term goals; on the individual’s capacity to cope with or adjust to the consequences of the event; and on the significance of the event with respect to individual and collective self-concept and to social norms and values. Although emotions trigger action, events with high emotional intensity may mobilize defense mechanisms that distort facts, so that the event may appear distant or not concerning the individual personally. In such cases action is hindered because the meaning of the emotive event, although fully intellectually understood, does not have personal emotional reality. If the defense mechanisms prove inefficient or collapse, the event may be experienced as traumatic, that is, as a shocking occurrence that brings about a rupture in the continuity of existence, numbing of senses and mental faculties, and inability to think about what happened for periods that may last from days to years, although individuals and collectives may appear quite normal in carrying out everyday routines. Interpretative “emotion work” in formal or informal contexts may change emotions from immobilizing to mobilizing, or from destructive to constructive, as the traumatic event is being “worked through” and a cohesive narrative about it develops. But even then, action and in our case, political action, depends on the individual’s available repertoire—political efficacy and resilience—built up from past recoveries and a sense of support from social networks, and hope in assessing the costs and benefits from the harms brought by acting and the harms brought by non-acting.

Liberal articulations of the ‘Enlightenment’ in the Greek public sphere

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:54 +0000

The paper analyzes ‘liberal’ constructions of the ‘Enlightenment’ in the Greek public sphere. The study is based on the analysis of articles published in two news/lifestyle websites, ‘AthensVoice’ and ‘Protagon’, during the years of the ongoing ‘Greek crisis’. Discourse theory, informed by critical discourse analysis, is deployed to analyze these discursive articulations. The analysis shows that Greece’s economic/social/political problems are viewed as symptoms that underline Greece’s fundamental deficit, which is the country’s ‘lack of ‘Enlightenment’. The article concludes that such discourses are part of a biopolitical, disciplinary framework producing the object to be reformed by austerity: a ‘un-Enlightened’ ‘Greek character’, ‘guilty’ for ‘self-inflicting’ Greece’s crisis. This ‘reform of character’ envisioned by (neo)liberals in Greece and elsewhere, is supposed to emerge through the institutional advance of neoliberal restructurings such as indefinite austerity and privatizations, conditions to foster the neoliberal, entrepreneurial, mobile and austere subject, to potentially reproduce that capitalist process.

Rethinking fragile landscapes during the Greek crisis: precarious aesthetics and methodologies in Athenian dance performances

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:53 +0000

The financial crisis in Greece brought about significant changes in the sociopolitical and financial landscape of the country. Severe budget cuts imposed on the arts and performing practices have given rise to a new aesthetic which has impacted the themes and methodologies of contemporary productions. To unpack this aesthetic, I explore the ways that the discourse and the experience of precarity molded methodological frameworks for artistic production in Greece during the crisis. Specifically, I address trends constitutive of a ‘precarious aesthetic’ in dance performance on Athenian stages and highlight the ways that the uncertainties caused by the financial crisis in Greece served as an opportunity to rethink dance performance aesthetics, devise new approaches to creation, and advocate for sociopolitical change.

The ‘Refugee Crisis’ from Athens to Lesvos and Back: A Dialogical Account.

apostolos — Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:53 +0000

Our grandparents, refugees Our parents, immigrants We, racists? 1 The slogan that prefaces the paper provides the theoretical caveat for the tensions, limitations, and contradictions of academic discourses in conjuring the daily realities of the era of the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece. This paper has the form of a dialogue between a sociologist and photographer (Myrto) and a political theorist and activist (Anna) who investigate different forms of the ways the ‘refugee crisis’ is changing the socio-political landscapes in Greece. The multiple aspects of our identities provide valuable tools with which we unpack the multiple and contradictory narratives of researching, learning, and disseminating in the current milieu. In particular, we are interested in the ways we shape knowledge and the tension between the episte-mological and the ontological ways of knowing. In other words, by moving from theory to praxis and back, we are attempting to reconcile the problem of knowing and the problem of being part of a specific crisis milieu. For example, how can we use crisis as a research methodology? What can we learn from the ongoing ‘refugee crisis’ in relation to issues of citizenship, belonging, and the future of the European project? Furthermore, the paper attempts to transcend discursive borders between social sciences and the humanities by analysing the deeply performative, situated and embodied practices of doing research in moments of crisis. For example, how to navigate multiple, and at times contradictory, aspects of one’s identity without returning to outmoded discourses of positivism and objectivity?