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Despite the widespread attention to capital investments in land and property around the globe, the active re‐regulating role of the neoliberal state in processes of "accumulation by dispossession" remains underexplored. Through an in‐depth look at the dispossession of highly fragmented and loosely regulated private land for windfarm investments on Crete's eastern corner, Sitia, this paper re‐affirms the political nature of the forcible appropriation of land for large‐scale investments; dissects the specific mechanisms in which the state dispossesses land on behalf of investors and promotes the forcible appropriation of land from below; and problematises the dialectic relationship of both rupture and continuity between crisis and inherited, path‐dependent relations embedded in land. The transformation of Sitia's loosely regulated, informal relations on land is made possible through the mobilisation of the state's bureaucratic and normalising powers, which redefine the concept of forest and dispossess through classifying land as such. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper expands upon the economic/noneconomic (cultural turn) debate in economic geography and proposes an alternative radical perspective through the lens of the European South. Based on the experience of Greece, the paper argues that no matter how important the cultural issues might be, the great political economy problems of distorted growth and incomplete development, sociospatial inequalities, and weak, incoherent and contradictory territorial policies continue to have a primary importance. The paper reviews some basic points of the cultural turn debate and then examines the orientations of radical spatioeconomic thought in postdictatorial (post-1974) Greece in arguing that this thought was mostly problem-driven, policy-oriented and focused upon the political economy of Greek socioeconomic and territorial restructuring. It is argued that a southern radical agenda has to be based more deliberately on holistic and inclusive interdisciplinary resyntheses in which cultural issues are given due attention, but not to the detriment of a radical understanding of the territorial workings of economy, society and power relations. The concluding suggestion of the paper is that it is a political turn, rather than a cultural turn, that is best suited to a radical interpretation of South European economic geographies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This paper examines the drought that hit Athens between 1989 and 1991 and analyses the role of this natural phenomenon as the “ferment” for ongoing political-economic transformations in the direction of liberalisation and privatisation of water management and allocation in Greece. The paper analyses how the drought was marshalled as an effective discursive vehicle to facilitate and expedite the state-led neoliberal political-economic agenda. It shows how the social consensus around a number of “emergency measures” that the state adopted to deal with a “natural” crisis was grounded in a particular discourse on water and in the political-economic “positioning” of “nature” as a source of crisis. In turn, this change in the “discursive” production of nature fused with the rhetoric and practice of market-led development and privatisation and, ultimately, facilitated important transformations in the social and political-economic (material) production of nature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

'Green-grabbing', in which environmental arguments support expropriation of land and resources, is a recognized element in neoliberal conservation. However, capitalism's strategic interest in promoting the neoliberalization of conservation is accompanied by attempts to exploit hitherto protected natures without any pretence at 'greenness'. In this paper we explore the dialectics between 'green' and 'un-green' grabbing as neoliberal strategies in the reconstruction of nature conservation policies after the 2008 financial 'crash' in Greece and the UK. In both countries, accelerated neoliberalization is manifested in diverse ways, including initiatives to roll back conservation regulation, market-based approaches to 'saving' nature and the privatization of public nature assets. The intensification of 'green' and 'un-green' grabbing reflects capitalism's strategic interest in both promoting and obstructing nature conservation, ultimately leaving for 'protected natures' two choices: either to be further degraded to boost growth or to be 'saved' through their deeper inclusion as commodities visible to the market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cities are crucial nodes of global economic networks. A city's economic success largely depends on its social capital and the existence of a hegemonic coalition for development. This paper focuses on Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, a country on the European periphery. The slow pace of development during the last 20 years has placed Thessaloniki in a vicious circle. It is argued that given the significant structural problems in Greece, a wide social coalition for development that embraces a large segment of the socio-economic, political and intellectual forces is necessary to boost Thessaloniki's development and ensure that its fruits will be reaped by all. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Antipode is the property of Wiley-Blackwell and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)