The Political Ecology of Austerity: An Analysis of Socio-environmental Conflict under Crisis in Greece^*

* The authors are grateful to all who supported the fieldwork in Greece, as well as to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this paper.

ABSTRACT

The paper focuses on two largely understudied and interrelated aspects of the post-2008 economic crisis: how the politics of austerity influences the dynamics of environmental conflict and how the environment is mobilized in subaltern struggles against the normalization of austerity as the hegemonic response to crisis. We ground our analysis on two grassroots conflicts in Greece: the “no-middlemen” solidarity food distribution networks (across Greece) and the movement against gold mining in Halkidiki (northern Greece). Using a Gramscian political ecology framework, our analysis shows that by reciprocally combining anti-austerity politics and alternative ways of understanding and using “nature,” both projects challenge the reproduction of uneven society–environment relations exacerbated by the neoliberal austerity agenda.

KEYWORDS:

• Austerity
• philosophy of praxis
• socio-environmental conflicts

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

* The authors are grateful to all who supported the fieldwork in Greece, as well as to three anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on previous versions of this paper.

1 To protect the anonymity of our interviewees we use fictional names.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (Marie Curie Actions) under Grant 289374 (ENTITLE). Rita Calvário recognizes support from the Spain’s Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad Grant PK612919 (SINALECO).