History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece

Author Daniel M. Knight: Daniel M. Knight is Addison Wheeler Research Fellow in the Department of Anthropology at Durham University, UK.

"This is a superb ethnography that would make a wonderful addition to undergraduate syllabi in anthropology on a variety of themes. By carefully documenting the details of local experiences at this crucial juncture of global economic shifts, Knight's ethnography is poised to become part of yet another 'culturally proximate' event in people's futures and represents an important contribution to the critical anthropology of crisis." (Ursula Dalinghaus, American Anthropologist, Vol. 118 (4), December, 2016) "This account of local modes of understanding and explaining contemporary conditions of austerity and perpetual crisis after nearly three decades of prosperity is very timely. ... a fascinating and timely account of creative accommodation to economic crisis." (Margaret Kenna, Journal of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 34 (2), October, 2016) "This book documents local perceptions of economic crisis in small-town Greece. ... students of modern Greek economic and political history will find much to their liking in this book ... . Also, the book gives food for thought to reconsider linear conceptualisations of time - the hallmark of European modernity." (Joost Beuving, Social Anthropology, Vol. 24 (2), May, 2016) "This is an ethnography of historical imaginaries, of the ways people con-ceptualize time in a polytemporal framework. It brings forward very help-ful remarks on the internalization of processes of structural adjustment imposed on contemporary Greeks. It can thus provide an entry point for appreciating the effects of neoliberal crises in the world today-especially underlining how the past is resuscitated in people's struggles to accom-modate recent hardships and imagine a future beyond the bounds of cri-sis." (Theodoros Rakopoulos, Anthropological Quarterley, Vol. 89 (3), 2016) "Daniel Knight's portrait of the so-called 'Greek crisis' - the financial crash and the sudden reappearance of a precarious economy after three decades of growing prosperity - is a testament to the resilience of his informants and his own matter-of-fact ability to withstand the temptations of sensationalism. ... Knight leads us into the everyday attitudinizing that reveals what really sustains the resilient Greek response to crisis." (Michael Herzfeld, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 22 (3), 2016)

• 1. Introduction: Prosperity and Crisis 2. Ethnography on the Plain of Thessaly 3. Return of the Tsiflikades : Crisis and Land Tenure 1881-1923 4. Hungry with the Same Famine 5. Things to Forget, Things to Remember: The Greek Civil War 6. Public Faces: Food and Protest in the Current Crisis 7. Transforming the Public Sphere 8. Status in Crisis 9. Conclusions: Past, Future, and Beyond