Infuriated with the Infuriated?

Abstract

The austerity measures introduced as a response to the recent financial crisis in Greece have inspired a wave of discontent among local Greek actors. The latter declared themselves as “indignant” or “infuriated” with the austerity measures. Their indignation, as I demonstrate in this article, has been expressed in terms of diverse arguments that have either encouraged public protest or served as a critique of the protest in culturally intimate contexts. Here, I argue that the critical local discourse about the austerity measures does not merely represent an attempt to evade responsibility but a serious concern with accountability and the unsettling of moral community, which leads local actors to pursue their own interpretative trajectories. The resulting interpretations, in all their diversity, and despite the fact that they do not directly affect political decisions, provide local actors with a sense of discursive empowerment against their perceived peripheralization.