Paper short abstract:

The paper will attempt to trace the socio-political codifications that produce the context in which the concept of solidarity is being mobilized at times of ‘crisis’ in order to consider its significance in an era of continuous social and cultural change in local, national and supranational level.

Paper long abstract:

The continuous social changes that have been taking place in Greece in the context of 'crisis' worked as a catalyst for the re-evaluation of the concept of solidarity in the public sphere and its re-considerations as a political practice. This paper will attempt to trace these transformations and re-codifications of the notion of solidarity as these play out in various forms of political practice. In the process of this endeavour the paper would explore in which way interconnections between difference, sameness and imagination drive and inform these practices. If in the core of the concept of solidarity is the effort to make visible shared experiences, values and ideas, then, to what extent can difference help contextualize these in an interconnected world? Also, considering that solidarity plays an important role in the way people position in the social field and imagine society either by re-affirming identities or challenging established values what kind of practices does it mobilize or make inert? This paper would engage with these questions both ethnographically and theoretically in order to analyse how these different elements come together to inform political practices.