Surplus Citizens - Struggle and Nationalism in the Greek Crisis

The crisis in Greece has elicited the full spectrum of responses - from optimism for a left parliamentary politics inspired by Syriza's electoral victory, to pessimism about the intransigence of the EU and calls for the reinstatement of full national sovereignty in Europe.

In Surplus Citizens, Dimitra Kotouza questions the terms of the debate by demonstrating how the national framing of social contestation posed obstacles to transformative collective action, but also how this framing has been challenged. Analysing the increasing superfluousness of subordinate classes in Greece as part of a global phenomenon with racialised and gendered dimensions, the book interrogates the strengths, contradictions and limits of collective action and identity in the crisis, from the movement of the squares and neighbourhood assemblies, to new forms of labour activism, environmental struggles, immigrant protests, anti-fascism and pro-refugee activism.

Arguing against the strategic fixation on unified identities and pointing instead to the transformative potential of internal dispute within movements, Surplus Citizens highlights the relevance of a discussion of Greece to collective action beyond it, as we continue to traverse a global financial crisis that has provoked conflicts over nationalism, immigration and the rise of neo-fascism.

About the author

Dimitra Kotouza lectures in sociology and politics at universities in and around London, and is an editorial collective member of the journals Mute and Endnotes. She is a contributor to Beyond Crisis (PM Press 2018, ed. John Holloway et al.), Biopolitical Governance (Rowman & Littlefield 2018, ed. Hannah Richter) and the forthcoming What Is to Be Done Under Real Subsumption (Mute Books, ed. Anthony Iles and Mattin). Her writing has also appeared in academic journals and radical publications in English and Greek.

Product details

• Authors: Dimitra Kotouza
• Publisher: Wiley
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 31.07.2019
• EAN: 9780745337791
• ISBN: 978-0-7453-3779-1
• Weight: 535 g
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Political science and political education; Geopolitik, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Ideologies / Nationalism & Patriotism, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Political Process / Political Advocacy, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civics & Citizenship, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Geopolitics, Nationalism, Politics / Current Events, POLITICAL SCIENCE / Civil Rights, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Refugees, Greece, Political activism, Social discrimination & inequality, Political activism / Political engagement, Social discrimination and social justice, Nationalism and nationalist ideologies and movements