Grassroots Economies

'Grassroots Economies offers an astute and heart-breaking account of the toll decades of austerity politics have taken on southern Europe. Each chapter offers remarkable insights-taken together they present a sober and illuminating portrait of dispossession and loss' -- Jane Collins, author of 'The Politics of Value: Three Movements to Change How We Think about the Economy' 'The financial crisis started in 2008 and the austerity policies that ensued have dramatically transformed the lives of millions of poor people in Southern European countries. This book is the outcome of an important anthropological research project over that period. It vividly documents how people faced tremendous difficulties and the loss of imagined trajectories to improve their own livelihoods, and activated intergenerational solidarity and self-sacrifice. It is a splendid, rigorously documented and well-written account of people's resilience in difficult times that may be of even greater interest now as the pandemic crisis unfolds.' -- Professor Enzo Mingione, University of Milano-Bicocca 'Against cultural prejudices commonly used to interpret the economic difficulties encountered by Southern European countries, Susana Narotzky and her colleagues have inquired into the precarious lives of people confronted with austerity in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis. Their 'Grassroot Economies' is a magistral endeavor to account for the current brutalisation of societies by capitalist practices and neoliberal policies.' -- Didier Fassin, author of 'Life: A Critical User's Manual'l