Transcript Where to go after the Crisis? Reflecting on citizens activism in Greece

Where to go after the Crisis?
Reflecting on citizens activism
in Greece
Georgios Agelopoulos
University of Macedonia, Thessaloniki, Greece
7th Konitsa Summer School
Konitsa 2012
Course on ‘The Political Anthropology of the Crisis’
List of Episodes
• Episode 1: ‘How can we cum up with a
movement in our village?’
• Episode 2: It all started at the local bakeries…
• Episode 3: Acropolis Now!
• Episode 4: Who pays the ferryman?
• A postscript about theory, methodology and
praxis
Episode 1: April 2007
• Discussing politics with 8 leftists in the town
of Thermi, a 20,000 residents suburb of
Thessaloniki.
Episode 1: The place
and the people, the participants
and their life trajectories
Episode 1: the political context
January 2007 – March 2007
• Student and staff members demonstrations
against the change of Article 16 of the Greek
Constitution (i.e. against the existence of
private Universities in Greece)
• The ‘Thursdays rendez-vous’ in the street of
Athens and Thessaloniki, the introduction of
tear gas produced in Israel, the victory of the
movement.
Episode 1
Episode 1
Episode 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9TsHwRuaj
0&feature=related
(minutes 0 to 1)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U0_1nCrJfuA
&feature=related
(minutes 0 to 2)
Episode 1 (finale)
• No local movement was formed until November 2011.
• In between 2007 and 2011: The 2008 revolt took place.
The conservatives lost power in the 2009 national
elections, PASOK and the far right wing party of LAOS
were the main winners. The PASOK government invited the
‘troika’ to Greece and imposed austerity. ‘Citizens
committees’ had developed all around Greece, mainly
coping with the newly imposed, at that time, property tax
(see: Poll tax in the 1990s UK, Property tax currently in Ireland, etc). The 300 migrants
strike took place. ‘Golden Down’ emerged publicly. The
welfare state in general as well as its local infrastructure
were rapidly in a process of demolition.
In between of
episodes 1 and 2
This presentation discusses the multiple
experiences of what we call ‘crisis’ and the
attempts to overcome them in present day
Greece. Instead of following a top-down
understanding of the ‘crisis’ and its uses, we
will focus on the emic defense mechanisms to
it.
Episode 2: A morning
at the bakery
Episode 2: The MOVEMENT
occurred…
• … but we were not aware of it!
(Nikiforos, Andreas and the poster. The 7 and 14
of November 2011 public meetings)
• The formation of the ‘Committee’
• The role of the local municipal authorities
• “Who are you?”: Local elites and professionals,
lawyers,Vlachs, leftists (of all kinds),
conservatives, local activists, faitfull Old
Calendarists and others…
Episode 2
Episode 2
Episode 2
Episode 2: Instead of finale, one
needs to provide some
explanations…
In between of Episodes 2 and 3:
Remember Marlon Brando?
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHjWDCX
1Bdw&feature=related
( minutes1to 2)
Episode 3: Acropolis Now!
Episode 3 at the local level
• Urban vegetable gardens
• Economies of scale at the family level,
migration, cohabitation, changes in the
educational priorities of the youth,
• Failure of local patron – client networks
• Closing down of 25% of the shops of the local
market
Episode 4: Who pays
the ferryman?
• The Committee and its activities (organizing,
informing, connecting, debating).
• The rest of the story in
http://denplironothermis.wordpress.com/
Episode 4: Who pays
the ferryman?
• The cost of the crisis and its class dimensions
• The activists and their class identity, cultural
and social capital
• Gender, age, previous political and social
activism
• Those who benefit and support the
committee
Episode 4: Who pays
the ferryman?
• The ferryman, the ‘Other World’and the
journey.
• ‘I could not stand the TV news any more…
something died inside me’
• ‘It’s here… where the new Greece is going to
develop’
• New forms of social solidarity, new forms of
social relations, new places (from the space to
the place).
Postscript
• Anna Karenina (p. 2) Theory of social
movements: ‘People will accept everything
provided that everyone else accepts them’
• G. Orwell (p. 3) Research methodology: ‘We
need endless efforts to see what is in front of
our noise’.
Some ideas about the theory of
social movements
• What to take into account when studying social movements: ‘In
social movements research, it is beyond any doubt important to
take into consideration the societal features that surround and
penetrate the event. Economic and societal orders, dominant
religious convictions, kinship relations and existing communication
media, among others, will inevitably have an impact on the course of
events with regard to the conflict at stake, and willdefinitely have a
bearing on local perceptions and valuation of it’ (Salman and Assies,
p. 207).
• The life trajectories of the activists: ‘in taking into account the life
histories of the actors in social movements, we learn to avoid taking
social movements as given aggregates once they ubiquitously
perform, or as phenomena inevitably triggered off by adverse
circumstances or the worsening of living condition , or… as
launched by the mere injection of a discourse made available by
third parties or by a charismatic leader (ibid. pp. 212-213).
Some more ideas…
The disabilities of political scientists when explaining social
movements: the simplistic hypothesis that changes in power
relations + accumulated frustration leads to anger and thus
to insurrection.
The disability of emic approaches and the need to
contextualize.
The ‘culture failure syndrome’: The disadvantaged ones wish
institutions to work. Thus they use proper cultural
narratives in favor of this attempt. It is only when they
loose faith to existing power institutions that they took
action to change them.
Some more ideas about the
past, the present and the future
Building institutions implies a projection of the
present into the future.
In Cracking Capitalism J. Holloway points out that
every crack in the dominant power relations,
every act of destroying structures, is in need
of establishing alternative modes of production.
(Aristotle: zoe vs. bios)
Some ideas about methodology
• The danger of crisisology (essentialize the
crisis)
• Anthropologists tell stories (in what ways?)
• Anthropological advocacy
• Theory and action (keeping the one in
distance from the other does not work)
• Knowing vs. understanding
In need of discussion
• Crisis: social transformation, not transition
• Crisis and the role of social sciences in
modernity
• The anthropological privilege