"As if we have become used to it" – Time and practice amongst students in the economic crisis in Greece

Abstract

Greece has since the revelation of its public debt in 2009 experienced an economic crisis. Governments in Greece has since the emergence of the economic crisis implemented austerity measures, such as tax hikes and cuts in public spending as well as pensions, to stabilize the debt issues of the country. The implementation of austerity measures has been done in compliance with terms of three bailout loan deals with the EU member states and the International Monetary Fund. 2015 saw the year where the Greek political party SYRIZA was voted into the government offices of Greece and subsequently held a national referendum on the terms of the third bailout loan deal.

In the spring of 2016 I took on ethnographic research amongst students of the Greek city of Thessaloniki where I aimed to research how the economic crisis had made an impact on the lives of Greek students. This thesis will explore how students in Thessaloniki experienced the economic crisis and how it had impacted their lives as students and their choices in education. This material will be analyzed within theoretical frameworks on crisis, practice-theory and the constructions of imagined futures to argue how the economic crisis in Greece can have an impact on actions and practices amongst students in Thessaloniki.