Contentious spatialities in an era of austerity: Everyday politics and ‘struggle communities’ in Athens, Greece

Abstract

Opposition to austerity politics manifested through mass mobilizations and the ‘squares’ movement’ in Athens over the past few years constitute key ‘moments’ in contemporary social movement debates. Nevertheless, the dispersal and grounding of an emergent bottom-up democratic politics in everyday life contexts and across neighbourhoods in the following period still remain analytically nascent. This paper addresses the key role of everyday politics in broader contestation and articulations of alternatives to austerity through the notion of ‘struggle communities’. First, it shifts the analysis of social movement, from ‘moment’ to ‘process’ and the quotidian, constructed at the neighbourhood level. Second, through a case study of a local campaign in the neighbourhood of Exarcheia, it locates the spatiality of struggle communities and their processual, often contradictory, constitution. Third, it discusses the possibilities and limitations for an alternative community politics to emerge and potential links to broader struggles in an era of deepening austerity in Europe and beyond. The paper methodologically draws on participatory ethnographic research conducted in Athens, Greece between 2012 and 2013.