Routledge Women's Work and Lives in Rural Greece: Appearances and Realities

This new volume explores the limits and possibilities of economic change in transforming the lives of women in rural Greece at a time of great economic and political change. It is based on ethnographic research conducted in two communities of Western Crete: Nohia and Platanos, where Lazaridis concentrates on three activities women are involved in: handcrafts, market-gardening and olive-growing. Review 'Based on first-hand personal empirical research in two villages in western Crete in the 1980s, this book offers some fascinating insights into a varied range of factors influencing women's working and domestic lives, problematising these categories. Women's income generating activities (producing craft products at home in one village, working in family greenhouses in the other) were systematically ignored in official statistics, and the women classified as "housewives". But the effects of their officially invisible new activities had startling outcomes in terms of spousal and family relationships and in the growth of women's associations. Differences in development between the two villages are discussed in illuminating detail. There is much here to engage the attention of those interested in gender, economic development, the impact of EU policies at the local level, the social construction of statistics, and caring for older people.' Margaret Kenna, Swansea University, UK About the Author Gabriella Lazaridis is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Leicester, UK.