Unit:
Deparment of Political Science & Public AdministrationLibrary of the Faculties of Political Science and Public Administration, Communication and Mass Media Studies, Turkish and Modern Asian Studies, Sociology
Author:
Nastoulis Angelos
Dissertation committee:
Παναγιωτόπουλος Παναγής-Γεώργιος, Αναπληρωτής καθηγητής, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης, ΕΚΠΑ
Λέκκας Παντελής, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης, ΕΚΠΑ
Ανδριάκαινα Ελένη, Αναπληρώτρια καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Ιστορίας, Πάντειο Πανεπιστήμιο
Τσάκωνας Παναγιώτης, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Δημόσιας Διοίκησης, ΕΚΠΑ
Τσιώλης Γεώργιος, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Κοινωνιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Κρήτης
Βαμβακάς Βασίλειος, Αναπληρωτής καθηγητής, Τμήμα Δημοσιογραφίας και ΜΜΕ, ΑΠΘ
Μαραγκουδάκης Μανούσος, Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Κοινωνιολογίας, Πανεπιστήμιο Αιγαίου
Original Title:
Αποσιώπηση και αναγνώριση: για μια κοινωνιολογία των θυμάτων τρομοκρατικής και κρατικής βίας στην Ελλάδα 1974 – 2018
Translated title:
Silencing and Recognition: towards a sociology of victims of terrorist and state violence in Greece, 1974-2018
Summary:
This thesis examines the way in which Greek society perceives terrorist/political and state violence during the period 1974-2018. By studying the social perception of the victims of political and state violence during the period commonly assumed to be the most peaceful in modern Greek history, we can identify social dynamics that, until now, have escaped sociological and historical observation. By examining Greece through the lens of its victims, this study posits that we can gain a more nuanced understanding of the recent historical trajectory. However, this approach also presents us with unexpected findings. In order to address the complex nature of this topic, we adopted an interdisciplinary approach, drawing upon elements from the fields of political science, history, and sociology. In particular, we drew from the field of sociology the concepts of "social scandal" and "social case" in order to examine the way in which Greek society perceived the incidents of terrorist/political and state violence during the period under consideration.
The study was based on two central fields of observation. First, in order to identify the victims, we extracted data from the daily Athenian Press of the period 1974-2018. The sources we gathered include discourse evidence produced by opinion leaders, intellectuals, columnists, and the readership, as evidenced in the newspaper columns during the 80s. The value of the material drawn from the press for understanding historical experience lies in its role in shaping patterns of thought, attitudes, and worldviews. The second field of observation concerns the subject-victim, who is unwittingly involved in a traumatic process. At this level of analysis, the qualitative method of semi-structured in-depth interviews in the form of life narratives around the traumatic event was employed. The interviews collected from the victims' relatives and eyewitnesses of killings provide insight into the cognitive processes involved in the formation of collective modes of signification and the experiences of the subjects at the center of our analysis. The research findings indicate that the social peace of Metapolitefsi period, did not provide the substrate for the transformation of social relations. The rhetoric of war, the hyper-politicization of the political sphere, and the constant confrontation between political forces left no room for the emergence of new identities, such as that of the victim. Furthermore, the case of the victims of terrorism demonstrates that the risk of terrorist action was not a concern for Greek society. The encapsulation of personal destruction within the human being eliminated the danger from the social organization and ultimately marginalized the individual who suffered the harm. Consequently, when an event of political violence is filtered exclusively through political competition, the value of human life is absorbed because of the conflict between the collective identities involved in the meaning-making of the violent event. The structure of individuals behind collective (political) identities subverted the widening of the circle of individuality and their effective political emancipation.
Main subject category:
Social, Political and Economic sciences
Keywords:
Victims of terrorism, political violence, political violence, Metapolitefsi, victimisation
Number of references:
1493
