D.M. Knight
Famine, suicide and photovoltaics: narratives from the Greek crisis
Knight, D.M.
Authors
Abstract
The Greek crisis has become the most eminent example of neoliberal economic meltdown over the past five years. In towns across Greece people try to come to terms with drastic changes in their everyday lives and grapple with the the complex mixture of politics, economy, history and culture that informs crisis experience. This paper addresses recurring themes in crisis narratives from the town of Trikala, central Greece, within the context of local history and economy. Narratives condense historical experience, fashion forms of cultural proximity and facilitate polytemporality. As people recall the era of ciftliks (great estates), the Great Famine of 1941-43, and the stock market collapse they construct a sphere of collective suffering and solidarity based on adversity whilst simultaneously critiquing economic systems. Historical events significantly inform present crisis experience in Trikala, adding local nuances to national and global problems. Three prominent themes can be identified in daily narratives that help locals comprehend the socioeconomic hardship: famine, suicide and colonisation. these recurrent themes form the bases for collective suffering, encouraging solidarity in the face of socioeconomic turmoil. In narrative, actors move seamlessly from past to present, offering a critique of economic systems by means of historical embodiment.
Citation
Knight, D. (2013). Famine, suicide and photovoltaics: narratives from the Greek crisis
Journal Article Type | Article |
---|---|
Publication Date | Feb 1, 2013 |
Deposit Date | Feb 6, 2013 |
Publicly Available Date | Feb 4, 2014 |
Journal | GreeSE : Hellenic observatory papers on Greece and Southeast Europe. |
Peer Reviewed | Peer Reviewed |
Issue | 67 |
Pages | 1-44 |
Keywords | Economic crisis, Neoliberalism, Polytemporality, Photovoltaics, Famine. |
Publisher URL | http://www.lse.ac.uk/europeanInstitute/research/hellenicObservatory/pubs/GreeSE.aspx |
Files
Published Journal Article
(343 Kb)
PDF
Copyright Statement
© 2013 Daniel M. Knight
You might also like
Temporal Vertigo and Time Vortices on Greece’s Central Plain
(2016)
Journal Article
Ethnographies of Austerity: Temporality, Crisis and Affect in Southern Europe
(2016)
Journal Article
Downloadable Citations
About Durham Research Online (DRO)
Administrator e-mail: dro.admin@durham.ac.uk
This application uses the following open-source libraries:
SheetJS Community Edition
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
PDF.js
Apache License Version 2.0 (http://www.apache.org/licenses/)
Font Awesome
SIL OFL 1.1 (http://scripts.sil.org/OFL)
MIT License (http://opensource.org/licenses/mit-license.html)
CC BY 3.0 ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/)
Powered by Worktribe © 2024
Advanced Search