Reassembling the Rural: Socio-Economic Dynamics, Inequalities and Resilience in Crisis-Stricken Rural Greece

Abstract

Rural areas are places where various social groups live either permanently or seasonally. The mobilities and immobilities of these groups are related to their differential resources. The vast impact of the financial crisis on Greece relates to the major decline of its GDP and enormous increase in unemployment. The article aims to shed light on the complexities of social marginalisation and social exclusion in rural Greece, but also, and more importantly, to theorise the coping mechanisms and strategies by those affected and build upon the experiences of rural areas during the prolonged economic crisis. Population dynamics and the various social and spatial mobilities in rural areas provide the baseline for tracing rural complexities and theorising the emergent coping strategies. The concepts of rural cosmopolitanism and resilience are used to unpack the complexities of marginalisation and social exclusion in rural Greece. A brief reference to the statistical data resolves the apparent controversies related to the changing regional and local geography of poverty and social exclusion in Greece during the crisis. The more focused empirical findings, illustrated in the form of two island areas, illustrate the various coping mechanisms and strategies that are emerging in rural Greece.