Th e desire for disinheritance in austerity Greece Daniel M. Knight Abstract: Associated with notions of family continuity, lineage, national belonging, and cultural roots, in Greece property inheritance was once highly desired. Yet, in recent years, there has been a rising trend of people wanting to be disinherited be- cause of the economic burden of new taxes introduced as part of the international austerity program and the need to focus all resources on the short-term future of the immediate family. Th e desire for disinheritance amounts to a longing for dis- connectedness, for exiting not only political structures but also kinship structures that have been historically closely linked with a Greek sense of self as particular political subjects. A focus on inheritance demonstrates how the political can be located in the mundane and the everyday. Keywords: austerity, belonging, dispossession, Greece, inheritance Vignette: Th e problem with property money maintaining rusty machines. Recently, the dishwasher stopped working and the bath Eleni’s grandmother owned a house on a small tap needed replacing because of the salt. And island close to Athens that was inherited by Ele- we buy endless amounts of bottled water. Th ere ni’s father, who subsequently added a small ex- are extra problems caused by humidity that eats tension to the original building and passed it on away at the surfaces. And then there are the to his fi ve children. Now in their twenties and crippling extra property taxes introduced over living in Athens, Eleni and her siblings oversee the last few years.” As austerity ravishes every the maintenance of the second home. Although aspect of life, the inherited home has become a the island is only a few kilometers from the cap- fi nancial and psychological drain. ital, there is no drinkable water. Th e corrosive Th e irony, Eleni notes, is that by signing nature of fi ltered sea water means that kitchen over the property, her father wanted to create appliances and pipes rust extremely quickly. It is social and economic security for his children rumored that the local mayor has struck a deal “but managed to achieve the exact opposite.” with bottled water companies and is therefore Th e idea of “putting in order [taktopoiisi] the reluctant to build a facility to pipe water from kids,” Eleni says, “is something really important Athens. According to Eleni: “We waste tons of in Greek families. … Postwar generations had Focaal—Journal of Global and Historical Anthropology 80 (2018): 30–42 © Stichting Focaal and Berghahn Books doi:10.3167/fcl.2018.800103 Th e desire for disinheritance in austerity Greece | 31 the need to safeguard the future of their kids, tention to solidarity movements (see esp. Cabot but it’s such a huge burden now for the younger and Rakopoulos 2016), indignation and pro- generations. … Now we run and can’t keep up test (Th eodossopoulos 2013, 2014), and activ- [trexoume kai de ft anoume] with the costs.” She ism championing the political left (Dalakoglou is passionate in her belief that “bricks and mor- 2012; Graeber 2013). In the course of long-term, tar [or, in her case, cement and wood] represent fi ne-grained ethnographic fi eldwork with peo- kinship and our roots [rizes] in Greece, but now ple from diverse social backgrounds, there will an inherited home is something that weighs you undoubtedly be occasions when respondents’ down, it is a stress, a burden, not desirable.” opinions or actions do not sit comfortably with Th e idea of providing social and economic the researcher or when one may fi nd an appar- security for children is prominent in stories of ent void where political action perhaps ought to property inheritance, as is the need to maintain be located. For instance, since the 2009–2010 a link to family history and roots in the nation. economic crisis broke out in Greece, I have reg- Even Greek migrants to northern Europe over ularly encountered informants who have come the past 30 years usually retain or even build a to accept the need to accommodate new living new house in Greece to preserve connections to standards rather than resist change, people who their “roots,” returning for Christmas and sum- state a desire to “disconnect” and “disassociate” mer holidays. Taktopoiisi is now a double-edged from the extended family and state, and some sword, providing children with a home comes who fear the postcrisis future, expressing feel- with added responsibility and fi nancial outlay. ings of comfort with their present situation in Th e same may be said when a property is in- a manner that may be described as a type of herited upon the death of a relative. Among my Stockholm syndrome. research participants in western Th essaly, cen- Th e details of seemingly mundane activities tral Greece, over the past three years, there has are oft en multifaceted, not solely located in hope, been a growing desire to be disinherited, a dis- resistance, and positive action toward the future connection from family history, from roots, and or, conversely, in apathy, exhaustion, and resig- from nation. nation. Th is is not to suggest that the study of protest and highly visible explosions of moral indignation is not important, but rather to say Setting the scene: Finding that one must look into every nook and cranny the political in the mundane to understand how people on the margins of Eu- rope but at the center of crisis imagine their fu- Europe is in an era of social, political, and tures and perform the political. Oft -overlooked eco nomic upheaval, a period brimming with aspects of everyday life can be pertinently po- promises of dramatic change and revolution- litical. For example, in a striking case that res- ary futures (utopian and dystopian), fi lled with onates with this article, Dzenovska (this issue) hope, speculation, anxiety, and apathy. Th e eco- demonstrates how not migrating but staying nomic crisis of 2008, the resurfacing of Cold put and fi ghting to maintain life as a little bit War tensions on the Eastern frontier, frequent more of the present can be more “political” than terrorist attacks, political extremism and the migration or protest. Th e choice to remain does rise of the far right, and real and potential “Bre/ not seem radical but is actually a highly politi- Gre/Frexits” have prompted a surge in highly cized decision. politicized scholarship in the humanities and In the introduction to this special section, social sciences. Recently, anthropologists work- Dzenovska and De Genova argue that to truly ing in the crisis-stricken “not quite Europe,” as capture the political, one must look at disrup- Dace Dzenovska and Nicholas De Genova (this tions of an established order but not always dis- issue) term it, have passionately drawn our at- ruptions that one might expect or wish. To this 32 | Daniel M. Knight end, they suggest, it is sometimes useful to “es- A mixture of anger and apathy toward successive tablish critical distance from anthropology’s own governments has led people to express the need project of critique, if only to understand the lim- to disconnect from institutionalized politics, be- its and possibilities of current forms of scholarly coming disillusioned not only with individual and political engagement.” Our informants do actors and political parties from across the spec- not always desire the political as understood by trum but also with the whole idea of “the nation” critical scholars, but rather employ coping strat- as a family unit comprising brothers with shared egies and livelihood diversifi cation techniques interests, goals, and a sense of responsibility to- and make seemingly paradoxical decisions that ward social reproduction. As one informant put showcase their political agency. Hope, Nauja it, “Greeks no longer have each other’s backs. Kleist and Stef Jansen (2016: 388) argue, is not Th e trust in the nation of people with ethical always positive: “combinations of uncertainty, obligations toward each other is gone. Now one anticipation and aspirations … generate specifi c must look aft er oneself.” Much classic Greek eth- degrees, forms and intensities of hope, whereby nography has engaged with how national iden- it makes little sense to use ‘hope’ as a blanket tity informs mundane relatedness, especially the feel-good word in the way that it oft en seems link between family and ethnos (Campbell 1964; to appear in the contemporary moment.” Across Cowan 1990; Loizos and Papataxiarchis 1991, the “not quite Europe” in crisis, one might safely to name but a few). Owning a piece of inherited say that hope is a symbol of the grave situation land, a house, or a family property in the coun- (people cling to fragments of hope in desperate tryside was once an integral part of belonging to situations) rather than a positive vision of the the wider Greek collective; disconnection from future, perhaps symptomatic of the fact that the land, from family and village history, means “the crisis”—the initial event, the rupture—has estrangement from the nation. become chronic, static, with people feeling On a wider scale, the desire for disconnec- trapped within a time loop of the present where tion also relates to ambiguous feelings toward preventing further decline is a genuine desire belonging in a modern neoliberal Europe (in (Knight 2016). terms of both space and time) (see Knight 2017), In this article, transformations in inheritance as recently documented by scholars of solidarity practices—a topic at the very core of Greek movements (Rakopoulos 2016). Th e desire to cultural and temporal landscapes—are where be disinherited off ers a diff erent angle on initia- people critique long-established connections— tives across the country to participate in other between property ownership, familial roots, na- forms of sociality that exceed established ideas tional sentiment, and belonging.