by Carmen Leidereiter Joao is one of Carmen’s interlocutors, a former entrepreneur who has retired from the business just in time before “the wind changed” and people started to lose money. He decided to become an organic farmer in order to “make up” for his immoral economic behaviour in the past. Joao is in his(…)
by Jaime Palomera Talking about the crisis of financialization implies talking about the crisis of the middle class as a political project. In Spain, as in many other countries around the world, the creation of a middle class identity is strongly based on the accumulation of heritage and assets through credit (linked to cycles of(…)
By Giacomo Loperfido Public library employees gave an astonishing account of the history of public libraries in the last 40 years, which seems a nice metaphor for larger and more general transformations also echoed in so many other spaces of the fieldwork. From the early 1970s on, public libraries were progressively established in every Vicenza(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu The Caritas Soup Kitchen (Mensa Caritas) opened in 1995 with a relatively low number (less than 50) of regular recipients, mostly locals. Nowadays the soup kitchen serves around 300 daily meals, divided between some 170 “external” meals (take away meals) and 130 “internal” meals (people who consume the meal in(…)
By Giacomo Loperfido The PSIL is a service established by the Provincia institution in 2010. Its purpose was to create an hub or space that would put into communication private and public social institutions in the area, with the aim of providing assistance to the weaker strata of the population. These were (and are) considered(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu The regional scheme CDC is designed for long-term unemployed people (at least 12 months), whose ISEE (Indicatore della Situazione Economica Equivalente), an index calculated on the basis of the previous year’s household income and patrimony, is under 3.000 Euros per year. Applicants are selected for “apprenticeship” in one of the(…)
By Giacomo Loperfido The relation between public and private sectors in this region is an overarching and all pervading matter that opens up and encompasses a series of subordinated questions, especially when it is put in relation with the epistemological space of the crisis, and its transformative energy. The best place to observe the functioning(…)
By Antonio Maria Pusceddu Lavori Socialmente Utili (socially useful works; LSU from now on) is a social welfare scheme that endowed public administrations with special funds to subsidize unemployed people for local community work. According to official sources (INPS – the national social security institute), by 2015 around 15.000 LSU workers were still in service,(…)
In Shisto, a few kilometers from the harbor of Piraeus, a Hot Spot started functioning in the end of February. The Hot Spots are part of the plan of the government in order to manage migration. They are mainly temporary structures for the refugees to settle and are mainly in the responsibility of the army.(…)
by Olga Lafazani Piraeus, as the main port connecting the mainland to the islands of the Aegean, has been one of the “hubs” of the massive migration movements that cross Greece since the summer of 2015. People from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere arrive every day in the islands and cross from Piraeus in order(…)
by Giacomo Loperfido There is, both in Reggio and Santa Croce, a general tendency towards social activism ‘from below’. Young people we met had organised into an association meant to facilitate the integration of foreigners in social life. Older people have created neighbourhood committees. It is interesting to see how in a flyer we saw(…)
by Giacomo Loperfdo In Reggio Emilia we visited the neighbourhood of Santa Croce, an old part of town that was initially destined to the workers of the metal-mechanic Reggiane industries. The area has of late been almost completely abandoned by its old inhabitants while a highly ethnified population of immigrants appears to have recently replaced(…)
On Sunday A.Tsipras announced the basic goals of the program of the new government. Alexis Tsipras: Excerpts from programmatic statements in the Greek Parliament. All these three days there is a continues discussion in the parliament and today, at about midnight, the government will ask for the vote of confidence of the parliament in order(…)
by Olga Lafazani ECB decided no longer to accept Greek government bonds as collateral for lending money to commercial banks. It is a way to put pressure (or even threaten) the new Greek government to discipline with Troika and memorandum terms signed by the previous governments. For more see: ECB cancels soft treatment of Greek(…)
by Olga Lafazani 22.01.2015 Things in Athens are really interesting these last days before the elections. There is an open “war” against Syriza from all the other parties, emphasizing mainly on “fear”: they are presenting the possible election of Syriza as the worst thing that can happen to the country, salaries and pensions won’t be(…)
