Haris Malamidis, Social Movements and Solidarity Structures in Crisis-Ridden Greece, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021, 363 pp. ISBN: 978-94-6372-243-8.
Social Movements and Solidarity Structures in Crisis-Ridden Greece is a comprehensive fieldwork-based study that examines the transformation of social movements and the emergence of solidarity structures during the economic crisis and austerity policies in Greece. Focusing particularly on the period between 2008 and 2016, Haris Malamidis explores how protest movements gradually turned towards developing direct forms of social provision and alternative forms of organisation in areas of basic need such as food, health, and labour. The book’s central concept, “boundary enlargement,” refers to the process through which social movement organisations move beyond their existing organisational and cognitive boundaries and develop new practices in areas previously addressed by the state or the market.
The study examines food, health, and labour as three interconnected social movement scenes. Markets without middlemen, collective and social kitchens, food solidarity networks, social clinics, and self-managed workers’ collectives represent different examples of alternative repertoires of action developed in response to the crisis. Malamidis approaches these formations not simply as mechanisms of social assistance emerging as a result of state withdrawal, but as continuations of the broader struggles against austerity policies in Greece.
The most important section of the book from the perspective of workers’ control and self-management is Chapter 5, devoted to the labour scene. Here, self-managed cooperatives and workers’ collectives are examined through themes such as assemblies and participation, processes of entry and exit, networked cooperativism, economic resources, and the political identity of self-management. By focusing particularly on the contentious origins of self-management and different forms of self-management, Malamidis investigates how collective labour developed alternative forms of organisation during the economic crisis.
Within this framework, the experience of Vio.Me emerges as an important example illustrating the relationship between workers’ self-management and broader solidarity movements in Greece. Malamidis connects the practices of mutual aid and solidarity developed by Vio.Me workers with the historical practices of the traditional labour movement, while situating self-managed workers’ collectives within the broader alternative economy and solidarity structures that developed in Greece during the crisis.
One of the book’s important strengths is that its analysis is directly grounded in extensive field research. Malamidis studied approximately 50 organisations operating primarily in Athens and Thessaloniki and conducted 63 semi-structured interviews, alongside document analysis and participant observation. The research therefore examines the relationships between social movements, solidarity structures, and self-managed organisations not only theoretically, but also empirically through their organisational structures, resources, and collective identities.
In these respects, Social Movements and Solidarity Structures in Crisis-Ridden Greece constitutes an important resource for understanding workers’ self-management within a broader ecosystem of social solidarity. The book makes it possible to approach self-managed enterprises and cooperatives not merely as alternative workplaces, but as formations connected to social movements, solidarity networks, and alternative economic practices. By ultimately relating this transformation to debates on the social and solidarity economy, the commons, and neoliberal political economy, the study is particularly valuable for understanding the social dimensions of workers’ self-management beyond the boundaries of the individual enterprise.