Abstract
Today’s urban landscape appears to be marked by a dialectical opposition between austerity and democracy, a conflict which is increasingly shaping urban space. On the one hand, we find public policies imposed through bailouts provided by supranational organisms; on the other, social movements born locally during the crisis have embodied a significant critique of the dominant role given to financial institutions. The “age of resistance” in Greece was part of, and gave a voice to, the global “piazza movement”. Pinpointing the main issues underlying this book, this chapter discusses key concepts such as “accumulation by dispossession” (Harvey), “resistance identity” (Castells), “area of cultural improvisation” (Graeber) and “the right through the city” (Arampatzi & Nicholls), which summarise the theoretical reflexion prompted by this case study.
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Cappuccini, M. (2018). Introduction. In: Austerity & Democracy in Athens. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64128-7_1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64128-7_1
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