Theodoros Rakopoulos | University of Oslo (original) (raw)
Peer-reviewed articles and book chapters by Theodoros Rakopoulos
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2022
This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue... more This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue that property tightly relates to statehood and that the concept of 'community' offers us a lens with which to investigate that relation. Property's 'communal' character in Cyprus often transcends individual rights to ownership. A house belongs not to an individual, but to persons in their capacity as members of either the Greek-Cypriot or Turkish-Cypriot constitutional communities of the Republic. Focusing on the moral and political claims that ensue from this premise, I show how refugee Cypriots encounter and rearticulate the state in a variety of institutions as they lay claims to property (periousia)-their own or others'. Consequently, I argue that thinking through 'community' contributes to understandings of the linkage between property and statecraft (what I call the state/property nexus). In turn, this allows us to better comprehend statehood in post-conflict domains.
On divisionism and cypriotism: The civic languages of the Cyprus Problem, 2022
This article analyses the two main vernacular poles through which the Greek-Cypriot population en... more This article analyses the two main vernacular poles through which the Greek-Cypriot population engages with statehood, and thus the Cyprus Problem. Using ethnography, I dissect two versions of “nationalist” cultural ethos, which, while pertinent to the post-colonial condition generally, are largely unknown outside Cyprus. These concern on the one hand the idea of divisionism and on the other that of cypriotism. I specifically show how the bicommunal nature of the state in Cyprus finds emic continuity among certain Greek-Cypriots that adhere to a non-nation-bound loyalty
glossed as cypriotism, while I illustrate how dividing techniques of conventional nationalist rhetoric operate among other Greek-Cypriots. I also briefly discuss how such vernacular experiences of nationhood and statehood reverberate among Turkish-Cypriots and Turks (the state’s “Others”) and consider the ways this affects the Republic. The article therefore contributes to understanding the political vernacular in the post-colonial and post-conflict context of Cyprus, and highlights from
below the local “languages” pertaining to the Cyprus Problem.
Social Anthropology , 2022
In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this articl... more In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this article argues that the concept of off shoring provides insights into rising realities in elite mobility and the formation of expat communities. I do this in the context of the proliferation of 'golden passport programmes', through which rich people are naturalised as citizens in the countries where they invest. Showing how the global citizenship utopia is materialised locally, I argue that golden passports are the continuation of off shoring by other means. Presenting an ethnographic portraiture of those enabling Russians to acquire the Cypriot passport, as well as how the Russophone community takes shape locally in Cyprus, the article shows how 'expat communities' can form as enclaves of safety that off er off shore convenience for certain elite community members. It also shows that golden passports exacerbate local inequality, undermining the egalitarian utopia of citizenship at large, with detrimental eff ects on the local sense of civitas.
Social Anthropology, 2022
Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry in anthro... more Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry in anthropology as of yet. This is intriguing, as encountering conspiracy theorists inspires a process of reassessing the critical nature of our own discipline, with its doubting mechanisms and thrill for alternative realities, and the essay offers analogies between such theories and anthropology. ThIs article tackles conspiracy theory through ethnographically encountering the people largely responsible for the creation and dissemination of such theories. I argue that ethnography of conspiracy theory is ethnography on and with conspiracy theorists. The essay responds to recent calls to address uncomfortable ideas 'at eye level'. Such calls to take seriously people who adhere to challenging ideas comes from work among far-right thinkers, an area sometimes converging with conspiracy theory. Reviewing material from fi eldwork in Greece among authors in the conspiracy genre illuminates a wide array of concerns, from the idea that their work is science-worthy to statements both associated and dissociated from fascist ideas. The essay shows how professionals of the conspiracy theory fi eld craft such theories and (re)work their own social standing, while I take conspiracy theory arbiters' claims to the epistemic seriously and explore their relations to the far-right.
Η ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΙΔΙΟΚΤΗΣΙΑΣ (Ή, όταν η ιθαγένεια πωλείται): Χρυσά διαβατήρια και πολιτική κοινότητα στην Κύπρο. , 2021
Στην παρούσα μελέτη παρουσιάζεται κριτικά το φαινόμενο των χρυσών διαβατηρίων αλλά και η συνθήκη... more Στην παρούσα μελέτη παρουσιάζεται κριτικά το φαινόμενο των χρυσών διαβατηρίων αλλά και η συνθήκη της αγοραπωλησίας της ιθαγένειας. Το παρόν εγχείρημα αποτελεί απότοκο εθνογραφικής έρευνας πεδίου στην Κύπρο στη διάρκεια του έτους 2018 και ιδίως του 2019. Για οκτώ συνεχείς μήνες εργάστηκα εθνογραφικά στη Λεμεσό και δευτερευόντως σε Λευκωσία και Πάφο, γνωρίζοντας από κοντά, συζητώντας και μελετώντας τον κοινωνικό κύκλο που συγκροτεί το λεγόμενο Κυπριακό Επενδυτικό Πρόγραμμα, το πρόγραμμα δηλαδή πολιτογράφησης ξένων επενδυτών ως πολιτών της Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας. Εργάστηκα ερευνητικά κυρίως με τους παρόχους –όπως είναι ο όρος- του προγράμματος: δικηγόρους, κτηματομεσίτες, πολιτικούς, developers –τις τέσσερεις επαγγελματικές ομάδες που οργανώνουν το πρόγραμμα, βοηθώντας ξένους να αγοράζουν ιδιοκτησία στην Κύπρο αξίας άνω των 2.5 εκατομμυρίων ευρώ, και δι’ αυτής της κατ’ εξαίρεσην οδού, να γίνονται Κύπριοι πολίτες. Βασικός μου απώτερος στόχος είναι η προβληματοποίηση του ίδιου του φαινομένου της ιθαγένειας, καθώς υπάρχει η ανάγκη στην κοινωνικοεπιστημονική βιβλιογραφία μας για μια κριτική ανάλυση της ιθαγένειας ως εννοιολογικής συνθήκης.
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2020
This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where... more This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where the mafia and their opponents (‘antimafia’ cooperatives) have lately been at loggerheads. My focus is on neighbourly relations between owners of plots on both sides. This uncomfortable proximity of enemies allows us to see boundaries as more than markers of separation. For sure, Sicilian boundaries imprint a history of violence on the landscape and divide people along categorical lines. However, they also reflect histories of inheritance and kinship, while providing points of contact and an unexpected moral order of neighbourhood relations. A focus on borders shared between plots managed by ‘antagonistic’ social groups exposes emergent relations of conflict and solidarity between their owners. Land boundaries can be markers of proximity and difference between opposed groups who find themselves owning plots next to each other. The boundary underpinning such divisions can make neighbours of feuding groups, rather than confining them to closed clusters.
Social Anthropology, 2020
This article proposes a movement between two sorts of dependency in the secretive bonds of violen... more This article proposes a movement between two sorts of dependency in the secretive bonds of violent men. The first forges an interdependent set of relations between mafia men, independent of the state; the second arises as a dependency of these former mafiosi on the state in order to break the interdependencies that formerly made them as mafia men. In this ethnographic and oral history narrative, we first witness a dyadic, homosocial relation between two violent men that forges a masculinised interdependence binding the protagonists of this story together as they share a secret. We then encounter the break-up of this interdependency amid local moral outrage over betrayal and violence, and its substitution by a strong dependence on the state. Through a microsociology that delves into a history of relations, the article thus shows how the subjects of this story shift from one set of dependencies to another. The essay critically revisits discussions of dependency, especially on the state, underscoring the missing element of dependency in the making and breaking of bonds in a secretive male brotherhood.
Entry for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
WHO’S CASHING IN? Contemporary Perspectives on New Monies and Global Cashlessness Edited by Atreyee Sen, Johan Lindquist, and Marie Kolling, 2020
Food values in Europe, 2019
The vicissitudes of the Greek “solidarity economy” include a movement of food networks that has d... more The vicissitudes of the Greek “solidarity economy” include a movement of food networks that has developed and spread during the country’s financial crisis. These foodways extend in a variety of forms and have included agrarian produce’s distribution against market middlemen and the establishment of consumer cooperatives. It is these arrays of food activism (Counihan and Siniscalchi 2013) that I explore in this paper, examining their point of convergence, which, as I show, is a concern with labour. The evaluation and valuation process (of people and their actions) that is taking place in this convergence is mainly done using labour as a measure of value, but also ascribing value to labour (cf Graeber 2001). In the specifics of labour recruitment to a food activist coop, an applicant is evaluated on a number of themes, including his political activity, while participants in nascent coops are counting their participation in labour hours.
Voci, 2019
This essay will postulate that the idea of moral borders should be a pertaining one throughout th... more This essay will postulate that the idea of moral borders should be a pertaining one throughout the ethnographic inquiry of mafia, antimafia, and organised crime. Currently, despite existing helpful ways to tackle the ambiguity of the mafia phenomenon in insightful, nuanced ways that only ethnography can offer, the epistemological slippage in providing a valuable definition, so known to scholars of mafia remains. This is because the historical (Schneider&Schneider 2003), phenomenological (Pine 2010), discursive (Blok 2000) and counter-discursive (Rakopoulos 2018) – to mention but a few – ways we go about doing ethnographies of mafia “culture” all agree that alluding to an alleged mafia “essence” is an essentialist, reductionist analysis that can harm rather than illuminate. This is the case with those anthropological insights in the nuances of Sicilian history and culture that include mafia in its interstices, regardless of whether these studies focus on social poetics (Palumbo 2009) or on, again, discourse (Di Bella 2011). Discursive takes on secretive associations operating in Italian territory go, in fact, well beyond studies of the mafia (see Mahmud 2012).
![Research paper thumbnail of [FOCAAL special issue] Afterword. Reversing the world: What austerity does to time and place](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/60417763/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](Focaal, 2019
Instead of taking for granted that austerity is unidirectionally associated with Europe, the anth... more Instead of taking for granted that austerity is unidirectionally associated with Europe, the anthropology of austerity should be paying attention to the situ-atedness of its eff ects. Th e levering potential that a comparative analysis of austerity allows is precious, for it opens new critical perspectives on our understanding of temporal and geographical consciousness. An antipode of perspective invites a more historical analysis of a phenomenon that unsettles the conceived understandings of Europe's position.
Focaal, 2019
This introduction posits that austerity is an instantiation of structural adjustment programs (SA... more This introduction posits that austerity is an instantiation of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and thus must be revisited in two ways, involving its historical and geographical rendering. First, anthropological accounts should think of austerity in the long term, providing encompassing genealogies of the concept rather than seeing it as bre ach to historical continuity. Second, the discipline should employ the comparative approach to bring together analyses of SAPs in the Global South and austerity measures in the Global North, providing a more comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon. We are interested in what austerity does to people's temporal consciousness, and what such people do toward a policy process that impacts their lives. We fi nd, in this comparative pursuit, instead of Foucauldian internalization, dissent and dissatisfaction.
![Research paper thumbnail of 2018. Introduction: Austerity, Measured [introduction to The Global Life of Austerity]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58301196/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](The global life of austerity, 2018
This volume aims to show that austerity is not an isolated phenomenon, a specific instance situat... more This volume aims to show that austerity is not an isolated
phenomenon, a specific instance situated in recent events
in Europe. On the contrary, the book argues that structural
adjustment policies, an agenda that goes back quite some
time, have served as a backdrop to the currently generalized
austerity configuration. Scrutinizing such policies teaches
us that austerity has a historical depth and geographical
spread that are vaster than what is commonly perceived.
History and Anthropology, 2018
ABSTRACT This article explores the meanings of imagined, secret and hidden wealth that followers ... more ABSTRACT
This article explores the meanings of imagined, secret and hidden
wealth that followers of conspiracy theory account for on different
sides of the moral compass, as bad and good. Conspiracy theory, a
strand of intellectual practice exacerbated by the recent crisis in
Greece, calls for exploring hidden wealth assets, while conspiracy’s
mirror-image, transparency, becomes central in the understanding
of wealth in this conundrum. Through three stories, that of Artemis
Sorras – a self-proclaimed trillionaire, of an anti-Semitic book and
of conspiracist publishers in Greece, I examine the centrality of
(un)accountable wealth in imaginations of peoples’ presents and
pasts. I explore narratives of wealth in conspiracist discourse
trajectories, showing how wealth can play a role in imagined
allegiances and political practices. A focus on conspiracy theory
allows an exegesis of how obscure narratives of wealth are
shaping the ways in which people conceptualize economic crisis.
Notions of accountability and secrecy are central to their (and our)
understandings of wealth – and are laden with contradictions,
according to diverse paths of moralizing the past. An anthropology
of conspiracy theory allows scaling narratives of wealth from the
microhistories of money flows to the political economy of crisis.
History and Anthropology, 2018
In this introduction, we aim to demystify the concept of wealth, too entangled in financial disco... more In this introduction, we aim to demystify the concept of wealth, too entangled in financial discourses, which have generally reduced it to ‘accumulated assets’. This is at odds with the intricate cultural history of wealth as a concept, as well as with abundant anthropological accounts, instead defining wealth as a question of reproduction, relational flows and life vitality. When we view wealth as firstly a product of relational capacities, we begin to understand the processes wherein it is constantly being pulled at from forces that demand appropriation, be that finance, community or state. We therefore outline wealth as a triangular phenomenon between capital, the commons, and power. Careful at the dynamics between such forces, we structure our analysis around the paradoxical social processes where wealth, originating in every day relationships and human reproduction, is continually exposed to claims – such as market alienation, but also ‘commoning’, or governmental state control.
Current Anthropology, 2018
Exploring Sicilian secular confessions, this essay discusses anthropological impasses on talk and... more Exploring Sicilian secular confessions, this essay discusses anthropological impasses on talk and silence. Such dilemmas reveal ethnographic frailties in engaging with concealment and revealing. The delicacy of negotiating between those demanding silence (the mafia) and those demanding self-revelation (the antimafia activists) unsettles the fieldwork ethics of our own anthropological entanglement in the gray areas of fieldwork between silence and talk. I show that pentiti (mafia confessants) blur the area between mafia and antimafia, allowing people to navigate across institutional categories. What is more, the essay embeds Sicilian confession in an intellectual genealogy, comparing mafia confession with its Christian counterpart and with bureaucratic theodicy. The move of confessional material of mafiosi and ordinary Sicilians from a private exchange to the public sphere recalls comparisons with religious ritual. While acknowledging the effects of confession on the mafia person, akin to the religious experience as a path to change and a new self, the essay suggests that secular confession should be approached through the lens of its effects on the lives of others. Its secularism is not imbued in an institution as much as it is invested in the life trajectories it inspires, often in the face of punishment.
Chapter from the volume "Critical Times in Greece: Anthropological Engagements with the Crisis", ... more Chapter from the volume "Critical Times in Greece: Anthropological Engagements with the Crisis", eds. Agelopoulos, G and D, Dalakoglou.
Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activit... more Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activities of certain groups, committed to building a social economy of distributing food without intermediaries. In the light of new ethnographic data from grassroots responses to livelihoods' hardship, I propose to expand reciprocity's conceptual boundaries, extended to include a local concept rampant in crisis-ridden Greece: solidarity. The solidarity economy can be seen as a conceptual and political bridge that symbolically as well as materially brings together communities of food production and consumption. The cosmology of the horio (village) is an unexpected urban activist metonym in the food distribution systems that have emerged amidst austerity measures in Greece.
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2022
This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue... more This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue that property tightly relates to statehood and that the concept of 'community' offers us a lens with which to investigate that relation. Property's 'communal' character in Cyprus often transcends individual rights to ownership. A house belongs not to an individual, but to persons in their capacity as members of either the Greek-Cypriot or Turkish-Cypriot constitutional communities of the Republic. Focusing on the moral and political claims that ensue from this premise, I show how refugee Cypriots encounter and rearticulate the state in a variety of institutions as they lay claims to property (periousia)-their own or others'. Consequently, I argue that thinking through 'community' contributes to understandings of the linkage between property and statecraft (what I call the state/property nexus). In turn, this allows us to better comprehend statehood in post-conflict domains.
On divisionism and cypriotism: The civic languages of the Cyprus Problem, 2022
This article analyses the two main vernacular poles through which the Greek-Cypriot population en... more This article analyses the two main vernacular poles through which the Greek-Cypriot population engages with statehood, and thus the Cyprus Problem. Using ethnography, I dissect two versions of “nationalist” cultural ethos, which, while pertinent to the post-colonial condition generally, are largely unknown outside Cyprus. These concern on the one hand the idea of divisionism and on the other that of cypriotism. I specifically show how the bicommunal nature of the state in Cyprus finds emic continuity among certain Greek-Cypriots that adhere to a non-nation-bound loyalty
glossed as cypriotism, while I illustrate how dividing techniques of conventional nationalist rhetoric operate among other Greek-Cypriots. I also briefly discuss how such vernacular experiences of nationhood and statehood reverberate among Turkish-Cypriots and Turks (the state’s “Others”) and consider the ways this affects the Republic. The article therefore contributes to understanding the political vernacular in the post-colonial and post-conflict context of Cyprus, and highlights from
below the local “languages” pertaining to the Cyprus Problem.
Social Anthropology , 2022
In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this articl... more In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this article argues that the concept of off shoring provides insights into rising realities in elite mobility and the formation of expat communities. I do this in the context of the proliferation of 'golden passport programmes', through which rich people are naturalised as citizens in the countries where they invest. Showing how the global citizenship utopia is materialised locally, I argue that golden passports are the continuation of off shoring by other means. Presenting an ethnographic portraiture of those enabling Russians to acquire the Cypriot passport, as well as how the Russophone community takes shape locally in Cyprus, the article shows how 'expat communities' can form as enclaves of safety that off er off shore convenience for certain elite community members. It also shows that golden passports exacerbate local inequality, undermining the egalitarian utopia of citizenship at large, with detrimental eff ects on the local sense of civitas.
Social Anthropology, 2022
Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry in anthro... more Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry in anthropology as of yet. This is intriguing, as encountering conspiracy theorists inspires a process of reassessing the critical nature of our own discipline, with its doubting mechanisms and thrill for alternative realities, and the essay offers analogies between such theories and anthropology. ThIs article tackles conspiracy theory through ethnographically encountering the people largely responsible for the creation and dissemination of such theories. I argue that ethnography of conspiracy theory is ethnography on and with conspiracy theorists. The essay responds to recent calls to address uncomfortable ideas 'at eye level'. Such calls to take seriously people who adhere to challenging ideas comes from work among far-right thinkers, an area sometimes converging with conspiracy theory. Reviewing material from fi eldwork in Greece among authors in the conspiracy genre illuminates a wide array of concerns, from the idea that their work is science-worthy to statements both associated and dissociated from fascist ideas. The essay shows how professionals of the conspiracy theory fi eld craft such theories and (re)work their own social standing, while I take conspiracy theory arbiters' claims to the epistemic seriously and explore their relations to the far-right.
Η ΔΗΜΟΚΡΑΤΙΑ ΤΗΣ ΙΔΙΟΚΤΗΣΙΑΣ (Ή, όταν η ιθαγένεια πωλείται): Χρυσά διαβατήρια και πολιτική κοινότητα στην Κύπρο. , 2021
Στην παρούσα μελέτη παρουσιάζεται κριτικά το φαινόμενο των χρυσών διαβατηρίων αλλά και η συνθήκη... more Στην παρούσα μελέτη παρουσιάζεται κριτικά το φαινόμενο των χρυσών διαβατηρίων αλλά και η συνθήκη της αγοραπωλησίας της ιθαγένειας. Το παρόν εγχείρημα αποτελεί απότοκο εθνογραφικής έρευνας πεδίου στην Κύπρο στη διάρκεια του έτους 2018 και ιδίως του 2019. Για οκτώ συνεχείς μήνες εργάστηκα εθνογραφικά στη Λεμεσό και δευτερευόντως σε Λευκωσία και Πάφο, γνωρίζοντας από κοντά, συζητώντας και μελετώντας τον κοινωνικό κύκλο που συγκροτεί το λεγόμενο Κυπριακό Επενδυτικό Πρόγραμμα, το πρόγραμμα δηλαδή πολιτογράφησης ξένων επενδυτών ως πολιτών της Κυπριακής Δημοκρατίας. Εργάστηκα ερευνητικά κυρίως με τους παρόχους –όπως είναι ο όρος- του προγράμματος: δικηγόρους, κτηματομεσίτες, πολιτικούς, developers –τις τέσσερεις επαγγελματικές ομάδες που οργανώνουν το πρόγραμμα, βοηθώντας ξένους να αγοράζουν ιδιοκτησία στην Κύπρο αξίας άνω των 2.5 εκατομμυρίων ευρώ, και δι’ αυτής της κατ’ εξαίρεσην οδού, να γίνονται Κύπριοι πολίτες. Βασικός μου απώτερος στόχος είναι η προβληματοποίηση του ίδιου του φαινομένου της ιθαγένειας, καθώς υπάρχει η ανάγκη στην κοινωνικοεπιστημονική βιβλιογραφία μας για μια κριτική ανάλυση της ιθαγένειας ως εννοιολογικής συνθήκης.
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2020
This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where... more This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where the mafia and their opponents (‘antimafia’ cooperatives) have lately been at loggerheads. My focus is on neighbourly relations between owners of plots on both sides. This uncomfortable proximity of enemies allows us to see boundaries as more than markers of separation. For sure, Sicilian boundaries imprint a history of violence on the landscape and divide people along categorical lines. However, they also reflect histories of inheritance and kinship, while providing points of contact and an unexpected moral order of neighbourhood relations. A focus on borders shared between plots managed by ‘antagonistic’ social groups exposes emergent relations of conflict and solidarity between their owners. Land boundaries can be markers of proximity and difference between opposed groups who find themselves owning plots next to each other. The boundary underpinning such divisions can make neighbours of feuding groups, rather than confining them to closed clusters.
Social Anthropology, 2020
This article proposes a movement between two sorts of dependency in the secretive bonds of violen... more This article proposes a movement between two sorts of dependency in the secretive bonds of violent men. The first forges an interdependent set of relations between mafia men, independent of the state; the second arises as a dependency of these former mafiosi on the state in order to break the interdependencies that formerly made them as mafia men. In this ethnographic and oral history narrative, we first witness a dyadic, homosocial relation between two violent men that forges a masculinised interdependence binding the protagonists of this story together as they share a secret. We then encounter the break-up of this interdependency amid local moral outrage over betrayal and violence, and its substitution by a strong dependence on the state. Through a microsociology that delves into a history of relations, the article thus shows how the subjects of this story shift from one set of dependencies to another. The essay critically revisits discussions of dependency, especially on the state, underscoring the missing element of dependency in the making and breaking of bonds in a secretive male brotherhood.
Entry for the Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology
WHO’S CASHING IN? Contemporary Perspectives on New Monies and Global Cashlessness Edited by Atreyee Sen, Johan Lindquist, and Marie Kolling, 2020
Food values in Europe, 2019
The vicissitudes of the Greek “solidarity economy” include a movement of food networks that has d... more The vicissitudes of the Greek “solidarity economy” include a movement of food networks that has developed and spread during the country’s financial crisis. These foodways extend in a variety of forms and have included agrarian produce’s distribution against market middlemen and the establishment of consumer cooperatives. It is these arrays of food activism (Counihan and Siniscalchi 2013) that I explore in this paper, examining their point of convergence, which, as I show, is a concern with labour. The evaluation and valuation process (of people and their actions) that is taking place in this convergence is mainly done using labour as a measure of value, but also ascribing value to labour (cf Graeber 2001). In the specifics of labour recruitment to a food activist coop, an applicant is evaluated on a number of themes, including his political activity, while participants in nascent coops are counting their participation in labour hours.
Voci, 2019
This essay will postulate that the idea of moral borders should be a pertaining one throughout th... more This essay will postulate that the idea of moral borders should be a pertaining one throughout the ethnographic inquiry of mafia, antimafia, and organised crime. Currently, despite existing helpful ways to tackle the ambiguity of the mafia phenomenon in insightful, nuanced ways that only ethnography can offer, the epistemological slippage in providing a valuable definition, so known to scholars of mafia remains. This is because the historical (Schneider&Schneider 2003), phenomenological (Pine 2010), discursive (Blok 2000) and counter-discursive (Rakopoulos 2018) – to mention but a few – ways we go about doing ethnographies of mafia “culture” all agree that alluding to an alleged mafia “essence” is an essentialist, reductionist analysis that can harm rather than illuminate. This is the case with those anthropological insights in the nuances of Sicilian history and culture that include mafia in its interstices, regardless of whether these studies focus on social poetics (Palumbo 2009) or on, again, discourse (Di Bella 2011). Discursive takes on secretive associations operating in Italian territory go, in fact, well beyond studies of the mafia (see Mahmud 2012).
Focaal, 2019
Instead of taking for granted that austerity is unidirectionally associated with Europe, the anth... more Instead of taking for granted that austerity is unidirectionally associated with Europe, the anthropology of austerity should be paying attention to the situ-atedness of its eff ects. Th e levering potential that a comparative analysis of austerity allows is precious, for it opens new critical perspectives on our understanding of temporal and geographical consciousness. An antipode of perspective invites a more historical analysis of a phenomenon that unsettles the conceived understandings of Europe's position.
Focaal, 2019
This introduction posits that austerity is an instantiation of structural adjustment programs (SA... more This introduction posits that austerity is an instantiation of structural adjustment programs (SAPs) and thus must be revisited in two ways, involving its historical and geographical rendering. First, anthropological accounts should think of austerity in the long term, providing encompassing genealogies of the concept rather than seeing it as bre ach to historical continuity. Second, the discipline should employ the comparative approach to bring together analyses of SAPs in the Global South and austerity measures in the Global North, providing a more comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon. We are interested in what austerity does to people's temporal consciousness, and what such people do toward a policy process that impacts their lives. We fi nd, in this comparative pursuit, instead of Foucauldian internalization, dissent and dissatisfaction.
The global life of austerity, 2018
This volume aims to show that austerity is not an isolated phenomenon, a specific instance situat... more This volume aims to show that austerity is not an isolated
phenomenon, a specific instance situated in recent events
in Europe. On the contrary, the book argues that structural
adjustment policies, an agenda that goes back quite some
time, have served as a backdrop to the currently generalized
austerity configuration. Scrutinizing such policies teaches
us that austerity has a historical depth and geographical
spread that are vaster than what is commonly perceived.
History and Anthropology, 2018
ABSTRACT This article explores the meanings of imagined, secret and hidden wealth that followers ... more ABSTRACT
This article explores the meanings of imagined, secret and hidden
wealth that followers of conspiracy theory account for on different
sides of the moral compass, as bad and good. Conspiracy theory, a
strand of intellectual practice exacerbated by the recent crisis in
Greece, calls for exploring hidden wealth assets, while conspiracy’s
mirror-image, transparency, becomes central in the understanding
of wealth in this conundrum. Through three stories, that of Artemis
Sorras – a self-proclaimed trillionaire, of an anti-Semitic book and
of conspiracist publishers in Greece, I examine the centrality of
(un)accountable wealth in imaginations of peoples’ presents and
pasts. I explore narratives of wealth in conspiracist discourse
trajectories, showing how wealth can play a role in imagined
allegiances and political practices. A focus on conspiracy theory
allows an exegesis of how obscure narratives of wealth are
shaping the ways in which people conceptualize economic crisis.
Notions of accountability and secrecy are central to their (and our)
understandings of wealth – and are laden with contradictions,
according to diverse paths of moralizing the past. An anthropology
of conspiracy theory allows scaling narratives of wealth from the
microhistories of money flows to the political economy of crisis.
History and Anthropology, 2018
In this introduction, we aim to demystify the concept of wealth, too entangled in financial disco... more In this introduction, we aim to demystify the concept of wealth, too entangled in financial discourses, which have generally reduced it to ‘accumulated assets’. This is at odds with the intricate cultural history of wealth as a concept, as well as with abundant anthropological accounts, instead defining wealth as a question of reproduction, relational flows and life vitality. When we view wealth as firstly a product of relational capacities, we begin to understand the processes wherein it is constantly being pulled at from forces that demand appropriation, be that finance, community or state. We therefore outline wealth as a triangular phenomenon between capital, the commons, and power. Careful at the dynamics between such forces, we structure our analysis around the paradoxical social processes where wealth, originating in every day relationships and human reproduction, is continually exposed to claims – such as market alienation, but also ‘commoning’, or governmental state control.
Current Anthropology, 2018
Exploring Sicilian secular confessions, this essay discusses anthropological impasses on talk and... more Exploring Sicilian secular confessions, this essay discusses anthropological impasses on talk and silence. Such dilemmas reveal ethnographic frailties in engaging with concealment and revealing. The delicacy of negotiating between those demanding silence (the mafia) and those demanding self-revelation (the antimafia activists) unsettles the fieldwork ethics of our own anthropological entanglement in the gray areas of fieldwork between silence and talk. I show that pentiti (mafia confessants) blur the area between mafia and antimafia, allowing people to navigate across institutional categories. What is more, the essay embeds Sicilian confession in an intellectual genealogy, comparing mafia confession with its Christian counterpart and with bureaucratic theodicy. The move of confessional material of mafiosi and ordinary Sicilians from a private exchange to the public sphere recalls comparisons with religious ritual. While acknowledging the effects of confession on the mafia person, akin to the religious experience as a path to change and a new self, the essay suggests that secular confession should be approached through the lens of its effects on the lives of others. Its secularism is not imbued in an institution as much as it is invested in the life trajectories it inspires, often in the face of punishment.
Chapter from the volume "Critical Times in Greece: Anthropological Engagements with the Crisis", ... more Chapter from the volume "Critical Times in Greece: Anthropological Engagements with the Crisis", eds. Agelopoulos, G and D, Dalakoglou.
Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activit... more Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activities of certain groups, committed to building a social economy of distributing food without intermediaries. In the light of new ethnographic data from grassroots responses to livelihoods' hardship, I propose to expand reciprocity's conceptual boundaries, extended to include a local concept rampant in crisis-ridden Greece: solidarity. The solidarity economy can be seen as a conceptual and political bridge that symbolically as well as materially brings together communities of food production and consumption. The cosmology of the horio (village) is an unexpected urban activist metonym in the food distribution systems that have emerged amidst austerity measures in Greece.
Jacobin, 2021
Sahlins, who passed away at 90 on the 5 th of April, was not only the most notable anthropologica... more Sahlins, who passed away at 90 on the 5 th of April, was not only the most notable anthropological writer of his generation. He was also a profoundly radical thinker in two ways, whose ideas had an impact on radical political thinking.
Resistance, via James Scott and the moral economy school, has established itself as a central not... more Resistance, via James Scott and the moral economy school, has established itself as a central notion in political anthropology for decades now, while crisis, as a core subject of historical investigation, has been more recently resuscitated (see, e.g., Koselleck 2002). Some current discussion of the crisis in anthropology and sociology has leaned toward the idea of resistance and dissent. In that sense, the subject of the two books under review—comprehending and resisting an ongoing crisis—might refresh our understanding of these notions' relationship, as well as illuminate the dizzying temporal processes of the age of austerity. Both books recognize that the current politics, as a strategic exercise in stretching social consensus, has begat an 'age of resistance' (for Douzinas) and 'organization against austerity' (for Laskos and Tsakalotos). There might be an underlying Polanyian predicament here in the form of a 'double move-ment', but the authors do not lay claim to that intellectual genealogy in order to conceptualize societal responses to economic deregulation and neo-liberal fiscal austerity measures. The normalization of crises in the capitalist core since 2008 has both shifted global attention to the 'rise of the BRICs' and brought the logic of precarity regarding our experience and appreciation of history closer to home. The critical juncture of the European sovereign debt and the related processes that brought the euro to the brink of collapse have been the most heatedly debated...[
Commentary on the "Society of peasants" book of C. Mavratsas
Η δυναμική του Ελληνικού λόγου στο Θέατρο, 2019
«Ελεύθερη Κύπρος σε μια ελεύθερη Ελλάδα». Αυτό ήταν το σύνθημα του ΑΚΕΛ, του Ανορθωτικού Κόμματος... more «Ελεύθερη Κύπρος σε μια ελεύθερη Ελλάδα». Αυτό ήταν το σύνθημα του ΑΚΕΛ, του Ανορθωτικού Κόμματος Εργαζόμενου Λαού, του Κομμουνιστικού Κόμματος της Κύπρου δηλαδή, στην ουσία ως το 1960, αλλά με ένταση ιδίως στην εποχή του ελληνικού Εμφυλίου, στα μέσα και τέλη της δεκαετίας του 1940. «Μικρό» το ζήτημα, και ξεχασμένο: γιατί πρέπει να μας απασχολεί η πολιτική στοχοθεσία, ο πολιτικός πολιτισμός (άλλη κεντρική έννοια στην ανθρωπολογία) ενός κόμματος μιας άλλης χώρας, σε μια άλλη εποχή;
Το άρθρο μελετά τις σχέσεις ΚΚΕ/ΑΚΕΛ και το ζήτημα και πρόβλημα της "εθνικής ολοκλήρωσης"
Αξία/Value (επιμ. Ε. Γιαλούρη, Α. Λαμπρόπουλος, Ε. Ρίκου), 2018
Εθνογραφικό παράδειγμα-συζήτηση της αντίστιξης αξία/αξίες στον τόμο "Αξία"
[Μια παιγνιώδης απόπειρα ανθρωπολογικής προσέγγισης.]
Journal of Modern Greek Studies Occasional Paper 6
An ethnographic insight on the YES and NO camps in the Greek anti-austerity referendum and an ana... more An ethnographic insight on the YES and NO camps in the Greek anti-austerity referendum and an analysis on the possibilities of a grexit.
A critical review of the terms 'exception' and exceptionalism, as well as a discussion of the sol... more A critical review of the terms 'exception' and exceptionalism, as well as a discussion of the solidarity economy and its relation with the Left, in a juncture of 'conferring' certain responsibilities.
Σχέσεις Αριστεράς-Εκκλησίας πριν την άνοδο του ΣΥΡΙΖΑ στην εξουσία.
Ο ανθρωπισμός του Ubuntu πέρα από την δυτική κοσμολογία. Η πολιτική εξέλιξη του Nelson Mandela.
Άρθρο στην Αυγή για τις ιστορίες του εγχώριου κεφαλαίου και την ανάγκη διεξοδικής ανάλυσής τους.
Este breve artículo pretende dar nuestra visión de la crisis griega, se basa en los enfoques antr... more Este breve artículo pretende dar nuestra visión de la
crisis griega, se basa en los enfoques antropológicos,
sobre todo porque las elecciones de finales del mes de
agosto de 2015 acotarán más su actualidad y subrayarán
su importancia internacional. En este sentido, se expone
brevemente la problemática del término “excepción” que a
menudo viene asociado con la crisis en Grecia. Sugiero y
propongo una mayor investigación desde un punto de vista
antropológico, ya que ello comporta numerosas respuestas
a la configuración de la crisis, arraigada en la propia historia
y en el radicalismo político actual de Grecia.
Αυγή , 2021
Book review για το βιβλίο ΦΩΤΕΙΝΗ ΤΣΙΜΠΙΡΙΔΟΥ (επιμέλεια), Εθνογραφία και καθημερινότητα στην «κα... more Book review για το βιβλίο ΦΩΤΕΙΝΗ ΤΣΙΜΠΙΡΙΔΟΥ (επιμέλεια), Εθνογραφία και καθημερινότητα στην «καθ’ ημάς Ανατολή», εκδόσεις Κριτική, σελ. 536
ANUAC 8(1), 2019
book review
ANUAC 8(1): 251-253, 2019
Sociologia e Antropologia, 2019
A review essay of the book of Keith Hart's life (in a twofold sense): his memoir. It includes a s... more A review essay of the book of Keith Hart's life (in a twofold sense): his memoir. It includes a set of reflections on Hart's life and work as well as his enduring ideas.
Review for the book "History, Time and Crisis in Central Greece".
Transformation Critical Perspectives on Southern Africa
Εφημερίδα των Συντακτών, 30.10.2015
EASA 2022 panel on grassroots states, 2022
Who are building the languages of the state in contemporary societies? And how can we engage them... more Who are building the languages of the state in contemporary societies? And how can we engage them ethnographically? The riddle on the state's presence for anthropologists continues.
Co-convened with Leandros Fischer.
This panel invites papers on the vicissitudes of citizenship today in and around "Europe" and bey... more This panel invites papers on the vicissitudes of citizenship today in and around "Europe" and beyond. We particularly welcome contributions on what we term "offshore citizenship".
Panel co-organised with Brian Campbell for the EASA conference, 2020.
CFP for EASA 2024 panel on sovereignty, 2024
With the recent resurgence of discourses on belonging and nativity, where different groups and pe... more With the recent resurgence of discourses on belonging and nativity, where different groups and peoples seek to "take back" their land, we ask: "Back from whom?". Reflecting on the relation between fragmented and robust statehood, we invite critical perspectives on sovereignty and territory.
Conspiracy theories and conspiracy practices: Moving between rationalities Convenors: Theodoros R... more Conspiracy theories and conspiracy practices: Moving between rationalities Convenors: Theodoros Rakopoulos, Univ. Oslo, theodoros.rakopoulos@sai.uio.no Steven Sampson, Lund Univ. steven.sampson@soc.lu.se https://nomadit.co.uk/easa/easa2018/conferencesuite.php/panels/6336 Small abstract: Conspiracy theory is a vehicle for both the powerless and the powerful. This panel seeks contributions examining conspiratorial hyperrationality, from political elites seeking support, social movements trying to speak truth to power, or fringe groups who 'trust no one'. Long abstract: The continued vitality (and possible growth) of conspiracy theories, here understood as secret plots by actors intent on political domination, is an intellectual practice popular among both elites and masses. Conspiracy theories are promoted by Trump and his supporters condemning 'the deep state', by contemporary social movements of the left and right, and by on-line communities intent on 'unmasking' secret plots or explaining disasters by assembling evidence and 'connecting the dots'. Seen anthropologically, conspiracy theories are alternative paths to knowledge whose actors see themselves as 'truth-tellers' in a milieu which may be ignorant or hostile to their message. In the mainstream culture, most conspiracy theories have remained marginal or at best entertaining, but this has only made the truth-tellers more determined. This combination of vitality and marginality, of outlandish reason, truth-searching and political critique, lends itself to an anthropological inquiry into conspiratorial discourse and practice. Our panel aims at understanding ethnographic practices branded as conspiracist, and we include here both the truth tellers among the population, but also political regimes, scientists and politicians who use conspiracy as a mobilizing tactic. We view the vitality of conspiratorial practice as more than just a psychological safety valve, or a refuge for the marginal or the alienated. Conspiracism is a vehicle for both the powerless and the powerful. The panel seeks contributions examining conspiratorial hyperrationality, from political elites seeking support, social movements trying to speak truth to power, or fringe groups who 'trust no one' and are trying to 'connect the dots'.
Cultural Anthropology, 2019
This piece, written in honour of Keith’s life and works, was never going to be a conventional Fes... more This piece, written in honour of Keith’s life and works, was never going to be a conventional Festschrift. Rather, we felt it was entirely in Keith’s spirit that it should be rendered as an open-ended, far-reaching, and multi-voiced conversation, in which Keith was an active participant.
The current version published on Cultural Anthropology's Member Voices site, is a transcription of the conversation we held for Keith, which took place at the 2018 European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) meeting in Stockholm. We asked people to think about the great themes of Keith’s work, including both methods and topics: money and currency; and scale and how to bridge individual experience, global process, and world history.
Offshore citizenship: Margins, enclaves, exclaves, and citizenship messiness in Europe and beyond... more Offshore citizenship: Margins, enclaves, exclaves, and citizenship messiness in Europe and beyond
This panel invites papers on the vicissitudes of citizenship today in and around "Europe" and beyond. We particularly welcome contributions on what we term "offshore citizenship"-the condition in which citizenship takes place beyond the confines of the state. Offshore sites could be seen as tricksters: they belong and do not belong, they stand on the friction of full recognition and ambivalence, and they escape most people's immediate attention (hence we mobilise the idea of "margins"). Offshore citizenship is then a broad term for citizenship happening "elsewhere". European examples include: European postcolonial countries like Malta and Cyprus engaged in selling their own (and thus the EU's) passport to an international market; the place citizenship in Brexit Britain or British offshoots in Europe and the world, like Gibraltar; the French "overseas" territories; the "European" shipping industry. We are particularly inspired by the vernacular ways that societies might construct citizenship-ways that do not always square with those held by their states. Such formations of citizenship are accompanied by an array of practices that sideline the classic classifications of citizen-making. We are thus principally interested in the messy shapings of contemporary citizenship, which allow for: tax-evasion nomadism, European "identity" ideologies, visa and passport acquisition in a global market, non-EU sites where EUrope is an everyday stake, as well as enclave and exclave citizenship belonging in, of, and out of Europe. The panel will also highlight how notions of accountability and control, so central to conventional citizenship, are side-lined by offshoring.
Disclaimer: This is a paper on clanship and stateship – very much in the making. It remains, in t... more Disclaimer: This is a paper on clanship and stateship – very much in the making. It remains, in this version, inconclusive and open-ended, seeking to discuss the problematics of family and clan notions of kinship and how they feed in formations of property. These formations are, in turn, creating degrees of eligibility for collectivist confiscation and redistribution. While in the long version of the paper I trace these problematics through the notions of neighbourliness between family and clan land, here I shall briefly debate the differences of the two notions, seeking feedback from colleagues on the notion of clan in the formation of understandings of private property in capitalist formations of landscape.
Paper for the EASA panel "What do we talk about when we talk about the mafia"
AAA2016 paper in "The Materiality of Solidarity" session
This paper shows that " conspiracy theories " set up a method of linking-the-dots as a central te... more This paper shows that " conspiracy theories " set up a method of linking-the-dots as a central tenet, where disperse events are sewn in, in coherent narratives. I argue that " conspiracism " is not an ideology of rupture but a radical method of linking disperate dots of evidence – a cognitive quasi-rupture. Thinking of it that way invites comparisons with our own epistemic thinking. I thus also draw parallelisms between the very formation of anthropological and that of conspirational knowledge. The aim is to elucidate how they never conflict or converge but constitute separate realms, which might share a lot in common. I suggest that conspirational thinking, like anthropology, gravitates around distant centers, arguing in different ways that " truth lies out there ". This alloucentric phenomenon is important to acknowledge when assessing the alleged paranoia " of conspiracy theory. Like other forms of knowledge not raised to the recognition of academic scholarship, conspiracy is more about truth-activism than about paranoia-raising. Long Abstract The proliferation of conspiracy theory, a strand of intellectual practice very popular in Greece that has been exacerbated by the recent crisis, calls for a prism through which to review the culture and history of such " theory. " This paper critically revisits the idea that conspiracism is rooted in " a culture of paranoia " and is thus a falling-out with epistemic thinking. It does so by reviewing ethnographic material related to different sources branded as conspiracist by their exponents and the press. My data include narratives on the exodus from crisis, alien agent formations, and even party politics or terrorist bombings. As a comparison between the epistemologies of scientism and conspiracism suggests, I take conspiracy theory on its own terms, steering clear from approaches in the relevant political science and political history scholarship. I compare different cases of " conspirational " thinking from Greece to show how they are rooted in hyperrationality and truth activism, a pursuit set on the investigation of revealing " the truth. " I argue that conspiracy theory is a method of " connecting dots " of
The state gives as a right what the mafia offers as a gift: reverse land enclosures in Sicily The... more The state gives as a right what the mafia offers as a gift: reverse land enclosures in Sicily Theodoros Rakopoulos, university of Bergen This paper, drawing from a Sicilian example, explores the problematics of what are claimed and promoted as reverse land enclosures – exploring how the normativities of gift and right play out on the ground in substantiating this idea. The Italian state has been confiscating the land plots of Mafiosi in Sicily. In a surprising move, the state bestowed some of this land to " community " cooperatives, to cultivate it in the name of the " collectivity ". Explaining this condition, antimafia activists like to cite a phrase of the assassinated antimafia Army police general Alberto Dalla Chiesa: 'the state gives as a right what the mafia offers as a gift'. The question of reverse land enclosures arises, bringing Polanyi to light. Can we reverse the Polanyian point on enclosures? How do we account for community in justifying such move? Exploring the normative narrative of the state and of people working in such cooperatives to explicate the " justice " of land's re-possession, this Sicilian story helps us nuance the antitheses between " rights " as opposed to " gifts " in shaping enclosures. In that context, the paper critiques arguments of mafia's free gift-giving, reflecting on how mafia draws on consent, mobilising networks and organising structures of support. The ways mafia and antimafia converge on contradictory narratives of landed economic landscape play out can help us revisit conceptualisations of state and market in legal conjunctures.
Launch workshop of the research network on the anthropologies of wealth, Thessaloniki 28-30 May. ... more Launch workshop of the research network on the anthropologies of wealth, Thessaloniki 28-30 May. Abstracts of papers presented.
Call for papers EASA 2016, panel 048
At the panel: Geographies of Capitalism and Landscapes of Globalization
Organisation of a panel on solidarity and solidarity economies at the ASA 2014. ASA14 Decennial... more Organisation of a panel on solidarity and solidarity economies at the ASA 2014.
ASA14 Decennial: Anthropology and Enlightenment
Co-organisation of a panel (with H. Cabot) on solidarity economies and the meanings of solidarity... more Co-organisation of a panel (with H. Cabot) on solidarity economies and the meanings of solidarity in Greece.
For the decade up to 2020, the Republic of Cyprus opened a route to naturalisation and citizenshi... more For the decade up to 2020, the Republic of Cyprus opened a route to naturalisation and citizenship by investment for non-nationals who wanted access to the EU - many of them wealthy Russians who had profited from the post-Soviet era. The magnitude of the phenomenon is staggering. Thousands of Russian, Chinese, and other investors became Cypriots by buying properties - and therefore passports - on the island. The 'EU passport' became the country's major export, and the city of Limassol changed dramatically to accommodate the skyscrapers ('passport towers') built on the seafront.
This book shows how a national passport becomes a global commodity, and unpacks the complex implications on the ground and in the EU. It interrogates the golden passports' right of money (jus pecuniae), which complicates existing citizenship structures associated with ancestry and territory. Examining the mobility of international elites, the ethnography contributes an original angle to migration studies, as golden passports suggest that citizenship has become a tool for the mobility of the rich. Through close engagement with the situation in Cyprus, Passport island shows how the global market for passports is tied up with economic crises, migration, property, inequality, and European politics. The book argues that the commodification of citizenship represents a new form of offshoring by other means.
Chapter 4 of "From clans to co-ops" book.
![Research paper thumbnail of 2017. The Anthropology of Co-ops, the Mafia and the Sicilian Lens [chapter from monograph]](https://attachments.academia-assets.com/58351118/thumbnails/1.jpg)
](From clans to co-ops, 2017
Austerity and structural adjustment programs are just the latest forms of neo-liberal policy to h... more Austerity and structural adjustment programs are just the latest forms of neo-liberal policy to have a profoundly damaging impact on the targeted populations. Yet as the contributors to this collection argue, the recent austerity-related European crisis is not a breach of erstwhile development schemes, but a continuation of economic policies. Using historical analysis and ethnographically grounded research, this volume shows the similarities of the European conundrum with realities outside Europe, seeing austerity in a non-Eurocentric fashion. In doing so, it offers novel insights as to how economic crises are experienced at a global level.
From Clans to Co‐ops explores the social, polical, and economic relaons that enable the constuon ... more From Clans to Co‐ops explores the social, polical, and economic relaons that enable the constuon of cooperaves operang on land confiscated from mafiosi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafia in Italian history. Rakopoulos's ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labor, ideologies of community and food, and the material changes that cooperaves bring to people's lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperavism, how labor might be salvaged from market fundamentalism, and to emergent discourses about the 'human' economy. " Erudite and readable, scholarly and passionate, this stunning ethnography reveals how the Sicilian an‐mafia movement shares with the mafia deep‐seated social bonds no less significant than the mutual enmity that divides and defines them. Focusing on the anti‐mafia's cooperative movement, which credits itself with the reltiave peace that Sicily now enjoys, Rakopoulos whisks from the mists of sinister secrecy a detailed and riveng portrait of the pas de deuxof social complicity and ethical engagement that has enabled this new configuraon to emerge within the ethos of modern capitalism. " · Michael Herzfeld, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University " This theorecally‐sophiscated ethnography will not only change popular images of Sicily, it will also provide hope for those struggling to find new ways of organizing life in today's troubled world. A seminal contribuon to human economy. " · Chris Gregory, ANU College of Arts and Social Science " Based on sensive fieldwork and thorough ethnographic research, this is a marvelous account of the an‐mafia co‐op project in Palermo, Sicily, which aims to transform landholdings previously owned by mafia families into funconing an‐mafia cooperaves. From Clans to Co‐ops not only takes readers inside the dynamics of these producer cooperaves, but also usefully reviews cooperaves from other places and other mes. " · Peter Schneider, Fordham University
Abstract This thesis explores the social, political and economic relations constituted in relatio... more Abstract
This thesis explores the social, political and economic relations constituted in relation to agrarian cooperatives that work land confiscated by the state from mafiosi owners in the Alto Belice valley, Sicily. It examines access to resources (work and land), and the cooperatives’ division of labour, paying attention to the material changes that the cooperatives (considered in the context of the anti-mafia movement) have brought to people’s lives, as well as the tensions regarding social, labour and property relations that emerged from these changes.
The thesis argues that the state’s intervention entailed the promotion of values (‘legality’) and relationships antithetical to those that obtained locally, such as kinship obligations and local reciprocities, as continuities between local workers’ moralities, and practices with mafia codes are seen as contradicting the state ideology of radical change.
These tensions are explored in the specificities of the cooperatives’ division of labour, which, informed by class, relatedness and locality, pose obstacles to the development of horizontal, equal work relationships. In this context, the thesis explores the contradictions and unintended consequences of the state policy of ‘antimafia transformation’, creating fissures between the cooperatives’ administrators, the local workforce and the wider community.
The thesis provides an ethnographic account of a political project of change that challenged the complex phenomenon of the mafia by radically shifting the conditions of access to material resources. The cooperative project provides alternative values and means of livelihood to those associated with mafia dominance in the area, but largely fails to address the local social arrangements within which the project unfolds. The thesis also addresses debates about horizontal relations in cooperatives, looking at how access to resources (land, labour, reputation) is organised across different moral claims and evaluations, articulated within and outside the cooperatives’ framework.
Introductory chapter to the book "From Clans to Co-ops", on an anthropology of cooperatives. (In... more Introductory chapter to the book "From Clans to Co-ops", on an anthropology of cooperatives.
(Individual orders can be made through Berghahn's website with a 50% reduction until January 31st, 2018.)
This series is more an agenda-setting enterprise than a mere book series. It promises to be the m... more This series is more an agenda-setting enterprise than a mere book series. It promises to be the most important scholarly initiative to come from the global south in a very long time; one that is sure to change how we think about the world at large, about economy and humanity. JOHN COMAROFF, Harvard University
Rakopoulos whisks from the mists of sinister secrecy a detailed and riveting portrait of the pas de deux of social complicity and ethical engagement that has enabled this new confi guration to emerge within the ethos of modern capitalism.
MICHAEL HERZFELD, Ernest E. Monrad Professor of the Social Sciences, Harvard University
This theoretically-sophisticated ethnography will not only change popular images of Sicily, it will also provide hope for those struggling to find new ways of organizing life in today's troubled world. CHRIS GREGORY, ANU College of Arts and Social Science
Based on sensitive fi eldwork and thorough ethnographic research, this is a marvelous account of the anti-mafi a coop project in Sicily which aims to transform landholdings previously owned by mafia families into functioning cooperatives. PETER SCHNEIDER, Fordham University
From Clans to Coops explores the social, political and economic relations that enable the constitution of cooperatives operating on land confi scated from mafi osi in Sicily, a project that the state hails as arguably the greatest symbolic victory over the mafi a in Italian history. Rakopoulos's ethnographic focus is on access to resources, divisions of labour, ideologies of community and food and the material changes that cooperatives bring to people's lives in terms of kinship, work and land management. The book contributes to broader debates about cooperativism, how labour might be salvaged from market fundamentalism and to emergent discourses about the 'human' economy.
2019
«η άλλη θεωρία»: Κατανοώντας τις «θεωρίες συνωμοσίας» μέσα από την εθνογραφία [διάλεξη στο Πανε... more «η άλλη θεωρία»: Κατανοώντας τις «θεωρίες συνωμοσίας» μέσα από την εθνογραφία
[διάλεξη στο Πανεπιστήμιο Κύπρου, Απρίλης 2019]
Το γνωσιακό πεδίο είναι, μας έχει δείξει ο Φουκώ, ένα πεδίο δύναμης, και η πολιτική της γνώσης, της γνωσιακής παραγωγής ειδικότερα, είναι οπωσδήποτε πολιτική. Λέω οπωσδήποτε με την έννοια του «σε κάθε περίπτωση»-κι αυτό αφορά και τον σκληρό πυρήνα των θετικών επιστημών. Επίδικο δεν είναι αν η βαρύτητα της νευτώνειας παραδοχής είναι νόμος. Αυτό ξέρουμε ότι ισχύει-ή τουλάχιστον το ξέραμε, μέχρι την κβαντομηχανική. Επίδικο είναι η πολιτισμική πρακτική της εμπέδωσης αυτής της γνώσης, και, εν προκειμένω, ο διαγκωνισμός με άλλες διεκδικήσεις του αφηγήματος της βαρύτητας, διεκδικήσεις που έχουν ή δεν έχουν την χροιά της επιστημονικότητας. Ο παραγκωνισμός επιστημονικοφανών αφηγημάτων για την εξήγηση του φυσικού ή, κυρίως, του κοινωνικού και ιστορικού κόσμοι, είναι που με απασχολεί εδώ. Ονομάζω εκείνες από τις θεωρίες που παραγκωνίζονται, ειδικά όταν αναφέρονται στο πολιτικό, «θεωρίες συνωμοσίας». Οι συνομιλητές μου τις αποκαλούν «εναλλακτικές», «παράξενες» ή ακόμα και «επικίνδυνες» θεωρίες. Οι συνομιλητές μου συγκροτούν το πεδίο αυτού που εμείς οι υπόλοιποι, κι ενίοτε κι οι ίδιοι, αποκαλούν «θεωρίες συνωμοσίας»-παραδείγματα αντιλήψεων κι αναλύσεων για τον κόσμο που δεν είναι ούτε εδραία ούτε παραδεδεγμένα ούτε αποδεκτά από την επιστημική κοινότητα. Ζούμε σε μια εποχή fake news, διασποράς ψευδών ειδήσεων, εναλλακτικών κι ενίοτε επικίνδυνων θεωριών για την ιστορία, απομάκρυνσης από το πεδίο του ρεαλιστικού, εκείνου που μιλά πραγματολογικά. Η παρουσίασή μου θα δείξει πως για την κατανόηση των θεωριών συνωμοσίας, χρειάζεται να κάνουμε μια κατανοητική κοινωνιολογία που ενσκύπτει στις πραγματικότητές τους δια των εκπροσώπων τους: των experts, των ειδικών, εκείνων που αναγνωρίζονται ως αυθεντίες του πεδίου. Συζητώντας την ανάγκη εθνογραφικής ανάλυσης για το ζήτημα, θα υποστηρίξω δύο πράγματα: πρώτον πως οι θεωρίες συνωμοσίας είναι θεωρίες, και άρα πρέπει να αντιμετωπίζονται στο πεδίο του γνωσιακού
Abstract of a paper given to the LAIOS seminars, EHESS, Paris. Paper by invitation of the LAIOS A... more Abstract of a paper given to the LAIOS seminars, EHESS, Paris. Paper by invitation of the LAIOS Anthropology team of the Institut interdisciplinaire d’anthropologie du contemporain, EHESS - CNRS.
PhD Thesis, Goldsmiths, University of London, 2012.
Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022
Berghahn Books, Dec 31, 2022
Anthropological Quarterly, 2016
Berghahn Books, Oct 22, 2018
The Cyprus Review - A Journal of Social, Economic and Political Issues, 2020
Cambridge Encyclopedia of Anthropology, 2020
Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activit... more Set in the urban-rural continuum of Thessaloniki, this paper explores the grounded social activities of certain groups, committed to building a social economy of distributing food without intermediaries. In the light of new ethnographic data from grassroots responses to livelihoods’ hardship, I propose to expand reciprocity's conceptual boundaries, extended to include a local concept rampant in crisis-ridden Greece: solidarity. The solidarity economy can be seen as a conceptual and political bridge that symbolically as well as materially brings together communities of food production and consumption. The cosmology of the horio (village) is an unexpected urban activist metonym in the food distribution systems that have emerged amidst austerity measures in Greece
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue... more This article shows that landed property can be an exercise of state sovereignty in micro. I argue that property tightly relates to statehood and that the concept of 'community' offers us a lens with which to investigate that relation. Property's 'communal' character in Cyprus often transcends individual rights to ownership. A house belongs not to an individual, but to persons in their capacity as members of either the Greek-Cypriot or Turkish-Cypriot constitutional communities of the Republic. Focusing on the moral and political claims that ensue from this premise, I show how refugee Cypriots encounter and rearticulate the state in a variety of institutions as they lay claims to property (periousia)-their own or others'. Consequently, I argue that thinking through 'community' contributes to understandings of the linkage between property and statecraft (what I call the state/property nexus). In turn, this allows us to better comprehend statehood in post-conflict domains.
Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
English : In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, t... more English : In the face of utopian discussions on global citizenship and cosmopolitan identities, this article argues that the concept of offshoring provides insights into rising realities in elite mobility and the formation of expat communities. I do this in the context of the proliferation of ‘golden passport programmes’, through which rich people are naturalised as citizens in the countries where they invest. Showing how the global citizenship utopia is materialised locally, I argue that golden passports are the continuation of offshoring by other means. Presenting an ethnographic portraiture of those enabling Russians to acquire the Cypriot passport, as well as how the Russophone community takes shape locally in Cyprus, the article shows how ‘expat communities’ can form as enclaves of safety that offer offshore convenience for certain elite community members. It also shows that golden passports exacerbate local inequality, undermining the egalitarian utopia of citizenship at large...
Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale
English : Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry... more English : Examining conspiracy theory authors has not been seen as worthy of ethnographic inquiry in anthropology as of yet. This is intriguing, as encountering conspiracy theorists inspires a process of reassessing the critical nature of our own discipline, with its doubting mechanisms and thrill for alternative realities, and the essay offers analogies between such theories and the discipline. This article tackles conspiracy theory through ethnographically encountering the people largely responsible for the creation and dissemination of such theories. I argue that ethnography of conspiracy theory is ethnography on and with conspiracy theorists. The essay responds to recent calls to address uncomfortable ideas ‘at eye level’. Such calls to take seriously people who adhere to challenging ideas comes from work among far-right thinkers, an area sometimes converging with conspiracy theory. Reviewing material from fieldwork in Greece among authors in the conspiracy genre illuminates a w...
Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 2021
Journal of Modern Italian Studies, 2020
This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where... more This article looks at boundaries as shared points of conflict and sociality in rural Sicily where the mafia and their opponents (‘antimafia’ cooperatives) have lately been at loggerheads. My focus is on neighbourly relations between owners of plots on both sides. This uncomfortable proximity of enemies allows us to see boundaries as more than markers of separation. For sure, Sicilian boundaries imprint a history of violence on the landscape and divide people along categorical lines. However, they also reflect histories of inheritance and kinship, while providing points of contact and an unexpected moral order of neighbourhood relations. A focus on borders shared between plots managed by ‘antagonistic’ social groups exposes emergent relations of conflict and solidarity between their owners. Land boundaries can be markers of proximity and difference between opposed groups who find themselves owning plots next to each other. The boundary underpinning such divisions can make neighbours ...
Το πάνελ στο συνέδριο του ΣΚΑΕ, Θεσσαλονίκη 2024 Επιμελητές Παυσανίας Καραθανάσης & Θοδωρής Ρακό... more Το πάνελ στο συνέδριο του ΣΚΑΕ, Θεσσαλονίκη 2024
Επιμελητές Παυσανίας Καραθανάσης & Θοδωρής Ρακόπουλος