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Women and the European crisis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2023

Wendy Harcourt
Wendy Harcourt*
Affiliation:
Erasmus University, The Netherlands
*
Wendy Harcourt, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, Kortenaerkade 12, 2518 AX The Hague, The Netherlands. Email: harcourt@iss.nl
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Abstract

The article raises questions about how the economic crisis is being played out ‘in place’, taking an embodied, generational and gender perspective. ‘Place’ is used in a political context by examining how global realities are experienced in place, and the author argues the need to look at the everyday realities of the crisis from a gendered ontological perspective in order to counter grand narratives of gloom and doom where women (whether old, young, migrant, heterosexual or otherwise) are particular victims. By discussing local contexts of the gendered realities of the crisis in three southern Europe areas, the author shows the possibility of changing the crisis narrative from one of overwhelming paralysis to one of potential transformation. The focus is on the rise of resistance, solidarity economies and new types of communities in the search by women in southern Europe for alternatives to neoliberal capitalism.

Keywords

AusterityEuropean economic crisisgendersocial justice
Type
Articles
Information
The Economic and Labour Relations Review , Volume 25 , Issue 3: Special issue - Crisis, Austerity, Neoliberalism and alternatives , September 2014 , pp. 455 - 464
Copyright
© The Author(s) 2014

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