ABSTRACT
The growing social inequalities at the dawn of the 21st century combined with the political implications of the global financial crisis of 2008 paved the way for examining class relations in modern societies by combining their material aspect with the cultural. The ethnographic case this chapter comprises is part of this shift aimed at examining the cultural conditions of identity formation of the contemporary working class in a specific shipbuilding locality of Greece called Perama zone, at the western Piraeus area. Based on more than ten years of research, the following ethnography aims to bring to the fore the conscious decision making that is the outcome of coercive material conditions of existence as well as the definition of agents’ interests. Thus, I refer to the ways local workers attempt to cope with the conditions of their existence and of employment precariousness, as these are mediated by (a) the identities produced within the particular “field” where shipbuilding activities take place and (b) the life materialities of workers in inner-class positions. This takes place in the post-Keynesian context of the economic crisis that in Greece lasted almost ten years—and is still going on.
