Papers > By author > Manioudis Manolis

The paper applies David Harvey's theoretical concept of accumulation by dispossession, to investigate and interpret socio-economic change in Greece, after the burst and during the economic crisis of 2008. To do so, it emphasizes the process of capitalist restructuring as it takes place in specific localities, but involves also political struggles and uneven relations of power among socio-spatial formations and interdependencies on all spatial scales, from the local to national, European and global. More specifically, we focus on the process of dispossession, as it takes place and is generated by “spatio-temporal fixes” of capital, to be either welcomed or challenged by different groups of stakeholders, in Siteia area in Lassithi, Eastern Crete. First, we present and explain briefly, the aftermath of the memorandums and consequences of austerity policy and measures, applied in the case of Greece, and highlight discuss aspects of the principle territorial and socio-economic divide between core and periphery, inside the EU. Then, analysis moves to a place at the boundaries and margins of a European periphery, where large investments in tourism, and also, in energy resources, have been for many years provoking scientific, as well as political interest, but also, significant social unrest. More specifically, we present the findings of field research and in-depth interviews, and we focus on some of the largest, mega-projects in Greece and on planned investments that have been characterized as strategic for national development and have been given preferential treatment and incentives, by the Greek governments of the past decade. The main contribution of the paper, is that it explains and describes the whys and hows of dispossession, in the frame of new economic governance, reproducing uneven geographies inside the EU, in a case of an outermost, ecologically fragile and less-developed region of the first-world periphery, or else, at the “back of beyond”