Topographies of Illicit Markets: Trolleys, Rickshaws and Yiusurum

Abstract

‘You take delight not in a city’s seven or seventy wonders, but in the answer it gives to a question of yours’ (Calvino 1997: 38). With this Calvinian dictum in mind I approach Athens; as both an insider and an outsider. I am a researcher pleading for objectivity in my birthplace, which frames my subjectivity. I am also a flâneur, always already trapped by the choreographies of the city’s rhythms, moving away from Athens’ ancient wonders. In this peripatetic struggle, I aim to articulate my question in relation to the current vulnerabilities in the era of stringent austerity and crisis. When nostalgia about the past prevails, the future is uncertain and therefore difficult to imagine, and the present is trapped in the transient state of crisis. In this dance, crisis becomes a frame-breaking moment of transcendence, which dismantles the hegemonic blueprints that govern everyday practices. How ought I to analyse an unfolding reality when crisis breaks the contract of time?

A big thank you to the editors of this volume for their invaluable comments in the shaping of this chapter. All photographs taken by Myrto Tsilimpounidi (Sony A100) under the auspices of the Ministry of Untold Stories (see www. ministryofuntoldstories.gr).