The Work of Pharmaceuticals in Austerity-Burdened Athens. Modes and Practices of Care in Times of Crisis

ABSTRACT Based on ethnographic fieldwork carried out in a social clinic of solidarity on the outskirts of Athens, the article explores how modes and values of care are constantly reconfigured at the intersection of an ever-expanding grassroots voluntary medical sector, the state and the household in a moment of severe economic distress. It traces the changing relations of care across these three realms where diverse modes of care have traditionally unfolded. In suggesting that pharmaceuticals have become increasingly crucial to social, economic and political relations amongst citizens who can no longer afford health care, I show how in the Athenian context, the circulation, sharing and exchanging of pharmaceuticals reinforce collective social bonds and argue that domestic modes of care (frontida) have increasingly been informed by biomedical modes of care (iatriki perithalpsi) stemming from the intermittent availability and unavailability of pharmaceutical drugs.