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Publications

This page profiles relevant online and print publications by project members during the period of this project, January 2015 to September 2016. Insofar as possible, links to full texts are given or these are uploaded.

Usurping Suicide: The Political Resonances of Individual Deaths

Suman Gupta, Milena Katsarska, Theodoros Spyros, Mike Hajimichael
Zed, August 2017, 256pp.

ISBNs Paperback: 9781786990983; eBook ePub: 9781786991010; eBook Kindle: 9781786991027; Library Edition: 9781786990990

Can an individual act of suicide be socially significant, or does it present too many imponderable features?

Usurping Suicide takes a unique look at the political and cultural implications of suicides committed in places where, due to social or economic pressures, the act has been deemed by certain groups to be of paramount public interest. Contrary to most examinations of suicide, this book is unconcerned with the individual dispositions that may have caused a person to commit such an act, but instead focusses on the reception they have produced. How does a particular act of suicide enable a collective significance to be attached to it? And what contextual circumstances predispose a politicised public response?

Covering specific acts of suicide that bore wider political resonance – from Mohamed Bouazizi's self-immolation during regime change in Tunisia to Dimitris Christoulas’s public shooting at a time of increased governmental austerity in Greece – the authors argue that the individuality of the act enables its collective purchase, posing a disturbing symbolic conundrum for the dominant liberal order.

Media Representations of Anti-Austerity Protests in the EU

Edited by Tao Papaioannou and Suman Gupta
Routledge, ISBN  9781138685932, 232 pp., September 2017 

This book analyzes constructions of injustice, group identification and participation in news and social media in anti-austerity protests within the European Union (EU). Since 2008, EU member-states have witnessed waves of protests and demonstrations against the adoption of austerity measures and alignment of domestic economies with the prevailing global neoliberal order. Understanding how the media represents dissent and how it influences public deliberation is of critical importance. It is accordingly necessary to explore the strategies deployed and role played by news and social media in representing and perhaps acting upon anti-austerity protests in the Eurozone crisis. This volume undertakes such a critical exploration.

Publications in the Journal Bulgarian Ethnology in Bulgarian

Papers by Mike Hajimichael and Milena Katsarska were published in the thematic issue “Cultures of Protest” of the Journal of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences Bulgarian Ethnology. The contents of the issue are available on the Bulgarian Ethnology website.

Hajimichael, Mike. “The Police Raid on ‘Occupy’ in Cyprus: an Autoethnographic Account of ‘For 1 Gramme’”, Bulgarian Ethnology, Volume XLII, N1, 2016, pp. 71-83.

Katsarska, Milena. “#The Protest: Anthologization, Branding and Institutionalization of Protest”, Bulgarian Ethnology, Volume XLII, N1, 2016, pp. 104-121.

Abstracts in English and the full texts in Bulgarian are accessible through the Central and Eastern European Online Library.

The cognitive map of a refugee

Eleanoas refugee camp - Athens

Michael Chanan

At the bottom of this long, pitted and dusty road in Athens is the Eleonas refugee camp, located in a run down industrial estate. This is my only picture because we weren’t allowed to film or take photos inside the camp, which currently houses around 1600 refugees from many different countries, but mainly Afghanistan and Syria. More are expected.

Read more at Putney Debater  

ProjectMuse-Crisis of the Novel and the Novel of the Crisis

muse.jhu.edu

Nation. Insofar as the unwritten agreement between general readers (interpretive communities) and producers (authors, editors, publishers) go, or insofar as the ...

Suman Gupta December 2015

Activism and the Academy in Ireland: A Bridge for Social Justice

This article written by Michael O'Flynn and Aggelos Panayiotopouls published in the journal Studies in Social Justice, was based on the talk they made at the project's Limerick workshop in November 2015. 

Publication in International Journal of Men's Health

Lee F. Monaghan, "Critiquing Masculinity Myths: Rethinking Male Bodies, Obesity and Health in Context", International Journal of Men's Health 14:3, Fall 2015, pp.233-49.

Abstract:

Various myths or fabrications centre the problems of modern masculinity and male bodies while detracting attention from broader sociological dynamics. After lamenting the general tendency to discredit groups of men and boys on the basis of negative cultural stereotypes, this article is organized into two main sections. First, reference is made to critical writings on “the obesity myth” and the war on fat as a gendered project. Second, it offers a lens on the broader social context which impacts upon people’s life-chances, health and wellbeing regardless of their weight/fatness and assumed aberrant behaviours. In so doing, connections are made with calls within medical sociology and critical studies on men’s health not to neglect embodied social structures and broader material conditions of existence. Such thinking, comprising efforts to theorize rising inequalities, serves as a point of contrast to a “narrowly logical” focus on “deficient” male bodies. Failure to think critically about such matters, it will be argued, could result in the (unwitting) reproduction of social inequity.

Fragmented we fight: what’s Left in Greece in 2015?

Gregoris Ioannou published an article 'Fragmented we fight: what’s Left in Greece in 2015?' on Open Democracy Net on 19 September 2015.

Tale of the Virtuous Poor article republished

Milena Katsarska's posting on the Comment and Debate page (Tale of the Virtuous Poor), was republished in the LeftEast website on 20 July. From there it was translated into Greek and published in the print version of the Enthemata newspaper on 26 July 2015.

Cyprus Review 27:1 Special Issue

Read the Cyprus Review 27:1 Special Issue on Media Representation and the Financial and Political Crises in Cyprus, published Spring 2015.

The UK Elections and the Crisis of Democracy

Suman Gupta, The UK Elections and the Crisis of Democracy, OpenDemocracy, 5 May 2015.  

“As the 2015 elections approach the media continues to bombard Britain with the spectacular message: democracy is in action! Voting, though, is only one part of democracy, and is increasingly meaningless.”

Testimony to the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Julien Mercille, Testimony to the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, 25 March 2015.

“On the role of the media during the property boom in Ireland in the banking crisis of 2002-07.”

Testimony to the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis

Terrence McDonagh, Testimony to the Joint Committee of Inquiry into the Banking Crisis, 26 February 2015.

“Discussing issues relating to the international, EU and domestic policy contexts to the banking crisis in Ireland.”