Social & Solidarity Economy in Crisis: An Ethnographic Analysis of New Forms of Organizing

This project studies social and solidarity economy initiatives in response to the Global Financial crisis of 2008 as instances of community organizing and sites for the co-production of ideas, knowledge, practices and resources. We focus on three social and solidarity economy initiatives, part of a wider landscape of alternatives emerging in crisis-stricken Greece, and explore their capacity to constitute new organizational forms. The selection of the cases has been based on the decision to present a scheme from different solidarity economy communities namely, art, health care and food collectives. We highlight the transformational capacity of these new forms in contexts of instability and flux, and their ability to create new forms of sociality and active citizenship. The study applies a longitudinal perspective involving multimethod qualitative approaches such as repeated interviews with key participants, ethnographic observations, and digital ethnography of publicly available documents, materials and cultural productions from various relevant web sources. The project aims to contribute to current literature and practice of organizing in crisis and austerity-driven economies by: a) clarifying the concept of solidarity and the expectations, norms and values that shape it; b) identifying the effects of the crisis on social economy and solidarity initiatives and the role that they play in re-building community relations; c) unveiling the processes through which social economy and solidarity initiatives co-produce new organizational forms; d) identifying the ways through which social economy and solidarity initiatives participate or contribute to social transformation in both local and translocal levels.