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Vertiginous Life provides a theory of the intense temporal disorientation brought about by life in crisis. In the whirlpool of unforeseen social change, people experience confusion as to where and when they belong on timelines of previously unquestioned pasts and futures. Through individual stories from crisis Greece, this book explores the everyday affects of vertigo: nausea, dizziness, breathlessness, the sense of falling, and unknowingness of Self. Being lost in time, caught in the spin-cycle of crisis, people reflect on belonging to modern Europe, neoliberal promises of accumulation, defeated futures, and the existential dilemmas of life held captive in the uncanny elsewhen.
“This book is an outstanding piece of work on the spatiotemporal elements of the so-called Greek crisis.” • Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JRAI)
“This is groundbreaking work in all terms – ethnographically, conceptually, analytically. The kind of book that will become a classic in more than one field.” • Elisabeth Kirtsoglou, Durham University
“This is an insightful and gripping account of a troubling undercurrent in Greece as depicted in the personal narratives by men and women who still struggle to build lives and livelihoods in the aftermath of the 2009 crash of the country’s state economy.” • Kathryn A. Kozaitis, Georgia State University
Daniel M. Knight is Reader in the Department of Social Anthropology and Director of the Centre for Cosmopolitan Studies at the University of St Andrews, Scotland. He is author of History, Time, and Economic Crisis in Central Greece (Palgrave, 2015) and co-author of The Anthropology of the Future (Cambridge, 2019, with Rebecca Bryant).
Preface
Introduction: Vertigo: Temporalities and Inconstancies
Chapter 1. Mairi: The Nausea of Unknowingness
Chapter 2. Dimitris: Rebuilding from Rubble
Chapter 3. Antonis: Technology and the Elsewhen
Chapter 4. Alexia: Life in Suspension
Chapter 5. Aphrodite: Captivity of Chronic Crisis
Conclusion: Parting Shots
Epilogue: A Note on Crisis
References
Index