Sociology of Crisis : Visualising Urban Austerity

Sociology of Crisis: Visualising Urban Austerity is a timely investigation into core sociological perspectives on crisis and austerity: time, the ‘Other’, contagion and urban space; resistance and future(s). Using methods from visual and urban sociology, it tackles the dual crisis of representation: both the political crisis of loss of faith in representative democracy as well as arguments about the partial, time-bound, subjective frame of photographic representations.

The global financial crisis has demonstrated the impact and implications of late capitalism and its bedfellow, globalisation. In the European context, crisis is seen as a threat to the stability of the region, rather than a local or national concern. Post-2008, crisis is social and political, rather than merely financial, as Western countries witness the consequences of consumption, growth and profit.

In this book, Tsilimpounidi demonstrates how sociologists must develop new approaches to examining rapid shifts in the social landscape, since crisis is not merely reflected in balance sheets, but is mediated through spectacular imagery of loss, deprivation and increased vectors of marginalisation. Providing focused and valuable insight into the pressing problems of those living in Greece in relation to the wider spheres of the nation and at the level of the European Union, Sociology of Crisis takes an approach that is firmly located within a critical sociological appeal to reflexivity.

A timely engagement with the problem of crisis at a macro-level and in dialogue with the everyday experiences of crisis on a micro-level, this interdisciplinary title will appeal to both undergraduate and postgraduate students interested in sociology, social policy, geography, urban studies and research methods (social science).