Abstract
Citizen initiatives flourished in the past several years, in response to the severe impacts of the economic crisis that affected Greece. The aim of this chapter is to offer fresh perspectives and systematic findings on such citizen solidarity initiatives in the country, both at the national and local levels. With respect to the former, the first part of the chapter offers new preliminary findings in the context of the LIVEWHAT (Living with Hard Times) project, and provides an overview of the main features of Alternative Action Organizations (AAOs), traced at the national level through a novel, hubs-based organizational website methodology. In the second part of the chapter the focus shifts from the national to the local level and empirically illustrates the social solidarity actions in Heraklion and Chania, the two largest urban centres in the island of Crete with long histories of philanthropic and solidarity organizations. The finding that an increased number of these solidarity initiatives address urgent needs related to food, housing and medicine, highlights the deep impacts of the crisis and the survival oriented resilience of the growing number of newly socio-economically marginalized groups.
Results presented in Sect. 2 of this chapter have been obtained in the project “Living with Hard Times: How Citizens React to Economic Crises and Their Social and Political Consequences” (LIVEWHAT). This project is/was funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme (grant agreement no. 613237).
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Notes
- 1.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), the European Central Bank (ECB) and the European Commission (EC).
- 2.
Neo-homeless include a new generation of homeless people who up until recently had a satisfactory standard of living and many of them are well educated.
- 3.
See also Work Package 6 of LIVEWHAT in http://www.livewhat.unige.ch/.
- 4.
See www.livewhat.unige.ch/ [25.11.2015] for details on the project.
- 5.
For details, see: www.livewhat.unige.ch/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/Analysis-of-Web-Accessible-Networks-Organizations-and-Groups.pdf [25.11.2015].
- 6.
Nodal websites were excluded from the search if they had notices prohibiting the use of their content.
- 7.
- 8.
Source: Own data with own calculation.
- 9.
Based on preliminary national level data from the LIVEWHAT-project.
- 10.
On two community level studies.
- 11.
The specific period is associated with particular events. May of 2010 was the first bailout received from the International Monetary Fund and European Commission and April 2012 was one month before the national elections. It should be noted that the study conducted in Heraklion took place over a longer period, however due to the rationale of the comparative approach, the analysis is limited to the same time-span applied in Chania.
- 12.
Patris (http://www.patris.gr/frontpage) is a local daily (except Sundays and bank holidays) newspaper, in circulation since 1946. The specific newspaper was selected as the main source of data as it has the highest circulation in Heraklion and it provided online access to its archives in order to retrieve the information needed for the study.
- 13.
Chaniotika Nea (http://www.haniotika-nea.gr), published daily (Monday to Saturday) since 1967, is the most popular local newspaper in Chania. Although the paper does not provide on-line access to its archives, the printed versions of Chaniotika Nea are sorted by month and stored in the public library of the city.
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Kousis, M., Kalogeraki, S., Papadaki, M., Loukakis, A., Velonaki, M. (2018). Confronting Austerity in Greece: Alternative Forms of Resilience and Solidarity Initiatives by Citizen Groups. In: Roose, J., Sommer, M., Scholl, F. (eds) Europas Zivilgesellschaft in der Wirtschafts- und Finanzkrise. Bürgergesellschaft und Demokratie. Springer VS, Wiesbaden. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-658-20897-4_4
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