Greece's Stockholm Syndrome: futility in a time of crisis

Stockholm Syndrome is a useful tool to analyse everyday explanations of crisis and the futility of desires for the future, furthering an attempt to populate the affects and orientations of a Time of Crisis. In employing the term, I do not intend to pathologise a Time of Crisis in a way that detracts from the agency and creativity of my research participants. To the contrary, coping with crisis under the so-called Troika ‘occupation’ and its aftermath has led to many people fashioning a space of self-determination within the confines of austerity; permanent crisis does not necessarily equal destruction. Stockholm Syndrome is a useful analytical tool to better understand how people describe a Time of Crisis as a timespace of paralysis, justifying their punishment, finding security in entrapment, and articulating the futility of resistance. As a vernacular resource Stockholm Syndrome helps unpack the affective structure of a Time of Crisis and the atmosphere of futility in captivity. It captures the futility of a life in chronic crisis and helps populate the timespace with affective structures and orientations.