Passion, Austerity & Public Space: Social Meltdown in Greece

Here is a fantastic piece of research and film-making! Dr. Dimitris Dalakoglou anthropologist at Essex, is involved in the project The City at a time of Crisis. On the related website you can find several interesting films such as Nearing the Edge:

Nearing the edge from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.

City at a Time of Crisis – Spaces of Othering: First comments on a hardly public space

We must keep in mind that the transformations taking place today in the body of metropolitan Athens do not take place independently of the transformations marking cities of the capitalist periphery. We ought, therefore, to conceive urban phenomena as an interweaving of multiform processes taking place much beyond our line of sight, much beyond the invisible walls of contemporary cities. We ought to look at the neighbourhoods around Victoria Square in Athens side-by-side to the neighbourhouds of Mogadishu. The neighbourhoods around Agios Panteleimonas next to those of Kabul. Not in the way dictated by far-right rhetoric – that is, as an adducing of examples aimed at comparison and ridicule, but as stops in routes acquiring meaning only when inserted in the historical thread woven by capitalist exploitation and the crises it both requires andleads into.

In the next film Athens: Social Meltdown, by Ross Domoney, Dr. Dimitris Dalakoglou explains the social meltdown which took place in Greece between May 2010 & June 2012 that is on going. This film contains videos and photos shot on the streets, often containing violence and paints a portrait of widespread economic hardship endured by a cities inhabitants. This film is part of an ongoing research project, which looks at the rapid structural changes which Greece is undergoing.

One of the interesting aspects of the film, as already noted at Culture Matters, is the emotions people have in explaining their motives for protesting and the reasons for why they are so angry. It is, I think, not only about being angry but also about being passionate in defending their lives, livelihood and maybe even Greece. The pain, anger and passion appear to be nurtured and stimulated during the protests as others join in when one person explains his emotions and affect. They are part of a collective event and a shared movement (in more than one way) through which they experience a connection and affection with other people united for a common goal: social justice. While Greek society on the one hand may be on the verge of disintegration, it appears (as I have experienced with protests in other contexts as well) that these protests provide people a sense of ‘doing something’, ‘defending something’ and fight for something good: survival, social justice and democracy. It stands in sharp contrast to the image of the fat, lazy Greek that prevails in so many of the debates in the EU on Greece.

Athens: Social Meltdown – Greek subtitles from Ross Domoney on Vimeo.