| Principal Investigator: | Dimitrios Theodossopoulos |
|---|---|
| Co-Investigation: | João de Pina Cabral |
| Research Team: | Lisa Rodan, Ilektra Kyriazidou |
| Project dates: | 1st October 2014 – ongoing |
| Funding: | ESRC (ES/L005883/1) |
The social dimension of this crisis is frequently assessed in terms of political rhetoric and broad figures, yet people’s personal experience and the effects on marriage, child-rearing, access to higher education, inter-generational dependence, old-age care, and psychological health, have received little attention. Responding to this profound change, our project investigates household responses to austerity in Greece and Portugal, two countries of equivalent size, which have been seriously afflicted by the financial crisis and their population is now experiencing heavy austerity measures.
In order to record the consequences of and responses to the economic crisis, as these are experienced in local contexts, we employ ethnographic methods to access socially intimate spaces, paying particular attention to household budgeting and economic cooperation between extended family members. We focus on everyday adaptations to the crisis that have so far escaped the attention of top-down accounts, such as the coping mechanisms of working- and middle-class families in Greece and Portugal.
We will record ethnographically modes of cooperation between extended family members, such as sharing accommodation or meals, caring for dependents on a reciprocal basis, re-use of inherited properties or previously undeveloped familial capital, and new commercial or humanitarian initiatives. We will investigate how particular family members experience these re-adjustments, inviting our respondents to share insights of recent transformations in their lives, which may potentially include a perceived loss of privacy or independence, and a return to culturally embedded patterns of reliance on extended family networks.
Our comparative focus will also contribute in assessing cultural variation in economic constraints and moral constraints, bringing together rich data from different local settings to explain economic and social transformation and its wider implications.
Please visit the project’s Facebook page.
Links with other projects
- Grassroots economics: Meaning, project and practice in the pursuit of livelihood [GRECO] (University of Barcelona) http://www.ub.edu/grassrootseconomics/
- The cultural politics of the Greek crisis: An AHRC-funded networking project at the University of Birmingham http://culpolgreekcrisis.com/beneficiaries/
- City at a Time of Crisis: Tracing and researching crisis-ridden urban public spaces in Athens, Greece. (Partner institution: Sussex University) http://crisis-scape.net/
Links to other relevant sites
Joao Pina Cabrals professional website includes details of his other current research activities.
Emerging concerns about solidarity and philanthropy
