Grassroots collective action within and beyond institutional and state solutions: the (re-)politicization of everyday life in crisis-ridden Greece

Abstract

This paper broadens and deepens the debates on the recent protests against austerity in Greece. The paper begins by investigating how the global crisis is understood, embodied and contested through the participatory forms of collective action and political organization in Greece. Secondly, it highlights transformations in the political behaviors and lived experiences of the subjects who participated in the recent and on-going wave of anti-austerity mobilizations in Greece. Finally, it emphasizes the ‘(re-)politicization of everyday life’ through the commons, which is a process grounded in the establishment of novel and open spaces of solidarity and trans-local collective action within and beyond institutional and state solutions. Building on these considerations, it is argued that the recent forms of everyday collective action have played a crucial role in challenging the prevailing neoliberal crisis politics, while at the same time are raising key issues for progressive governments and other institutional agents.