This is a CTP of initiative: Shareable‐ShareableAthens (Greece)
This Critical Turning Point (CTP3) consists of the first of a series of events that were organized in Athens aiming to present the Ouishare international network and attempt to initiate a local manifestation of Ouishare in Athens (Ouishare Greece). This first meeting happened on the 22nd April 2013 at CAMP (Contemporary Art Meeting Point) in Athens, which was also the sponsor of the event.
The event was organized by two of the Ouishare connectors (as defined by Ouishare, connectors are the highly active members that put our mission into action day by day) from France, Germany and the UK, one of whom had also moved permanently to Athens. According to the description of the event on Facebook it would “feature a recap of OuiShare projects followed by an Open Pitch Session”. Everyone was invited to present a project to the community of Ouishare.
At the end of this event, some of the participants were motivated to initiate a local manifestation as part of the international Ouishare network. Therefore, after this first event, the Ouishare Athens group was not “established”. The representatives of Ouishare along with the Greek people who were interested, agreed to arrange a series of next meetings in order to organize the Ouishare network of Athens, and they were the ones who implemented and participated in those meetings (that are described as a different CTP, at CTP 3).
As a first step, a Facebook group was formed, and the second informal meeting for drinks was arranged.
The first event that was described above, constituted a Critical Turning Point as it is a moment when people who were motivated to bring together groups interested and involved in the sharing economy in Athens found a suitable opportunity to do so and an existing international network (the Ouishare) that they could be part of. Up to that point, the groups that already existed in Greece were “focused on the commons and not on the sharing culture as it is perceived by Ouishare” (indicating a solidarity economy approach in Athens). Ouishare’s philosophy is about the collaborative economy as a new direction for innovation and development, which contrasts traditional economic development pathways. The presentation of the network in Athens was an opportunity to try and self-organize around a different, fresh idea and bring to Greece a network that is very successful abroad.
The team that decided to go forward with the creation of Ouishare Athens believed at that moment that there was space for new ways of thinking and new perspectives to be introduced in Greece. This perception was a result of their personal, general interest in the sharing economy, and the observation that a network such as Ouishare was missing from Athens. However, Ouishare was not related to the context of Athens in particular and the socio-economic events that were happening at that time, such as the social and economic crisis.
The goal of the team was to connect as many initiatives as possible, or motivate them to connect to each other. Having the possibility to label the new initiative under “Ouishare” would be helpful as it would immediately make the local network part of a wider international network. Nevertheless, the local network would function (locally, in Athens) as if it had any other name, being part of Ouishare would not affect the freedom of the initiatives to steer their own network.
This Critical Turning Point was co-produced by the representatives of the Ouishare network from France, Germany and UK, who decided to present the network in Athens, and the Greek people who joined and were interested in organizing the local manifestation of the Ouishare network in Athens. In addition, Greek people who had been following the activity of Ouishare international for a long time and were active in other sharing economy initiatives in Greece.
As it turned out, many people in Athens were aware of the Ouishare network, before this presentation. However, the event was an opportunity for people to meet each other on a personal basis. After the event, one of the participants took the leading role, and the responsibility to organize a series of meetings towards the creation of the network. He had already been active in several sharing economy groups in Greece, and had a close circle of people he knew and could trust, that were willing to support him in creating the Ouishare Athens network.
The “connectors” of Ouishare also supported the Greek initiators in the next steps of their attempt, by providing contacts and organizational support. Their actions were driven by enthusiasm to find out how the sharing economy works in another context, meet new people with similar interests and expand the network of Ouishare. However, the connectors, as well as Ouishare would not gain anything particular from a new Ouishare network being established in Athens. It would be a new, welcomed addition to the network that is growing bigger, and this was enough.
The Shareable magazine had also played a role in this event to be organized, but indirectly. Firstly, the Ouishare connector who lived in Athens was also a writer for Shareable, where he had been writing about the Greek sharing and solidarity economy. Secondly, Shareable was (and still is) very popular in Athens, and many people follow its articles and activities. This had played a role in Athenians being already aware and familiar with networks like Ouishare for years.
Eventually, Ouishare became the contact point for Athens on the Shareable platform’s sharing cities entry for Athens.
Earlier events related to this Critical Turning Point were:
Without the aforementioned earlier events, the event would not have been organized, and the small group supporting the continuation towards Ouishare Athens would not have been formed.
Nevertheless, the idea of establishing an Ouishare Athens network was not entirely new. The thought that this would be a good idea, providing networking opportunities and facilitating the promotion of sharing economy in Athens, had been heard at many informal meetings of several groups. However, a formal proposal was never made before, until the first event to present Ouishare was arranged in Athens.
Another event, related indirectly to this Critical Turning Point was the overall disappointment of Greek society at the European Union and international institutions. This feeling was caused by the harsh social and economic measures that were continuously being imposed on Greece, leading to unemployment, cuts on salaries, increase of taxes and a general collapse of the Greek economy -and society. Feeling the need to protect itself from this threat, or “enemy” coming from abroad, the Greek society became suspicious and cautious with solutions and ideas coming from Europe, ready to be applied on the Greek context. And this was also extended to ideas such as Ouishare.
However, the events that followed this initial meeting are also of importance. There were two more meetings organized, in a less formal atmosphere, in July 2013 and April 2014 (which will be tackled in CTP 5). The events were inviting people to join an informal drinks gathering, in order to discuss the establishment of the Ouishare Greece network.
Although people responded positively to the call and attended the event, there was a difficulty in understanding what the two Ouishare connectors were trying to communicate. Their lack of narratives relevant to the Greek context led to suspiciousness and lack of trust in the intentions of the presenters. The overall comment of the audience was that it is not possible to just bring something that works abroad, in entirely different countries and socio-economic situations, and expect that it will immediately work. Any new idea has to relate to specific needs, there needs to be a strong reason to create a new network.
An additional point for contestation the choice of a location that was more a “creative” artistic location and not part of the solidarity network. This fact resulted in many of the participants finding it difficult to identify with the organizers.
The people who attended the event seemed unprepared to accept a network such as Ouishare. A reason was that there was nothing similar in Athens already, so it was something new that had to be tested before accepted. In addition, the way it was presented, involving tech solutions, innovative business models, creative class, detached it from anything that was happening in reality, where the economic crisis was getting increasingly worse. It was very easy to reject the idea based on the multiple factors presented above.
However, some of the people were interested in trying to set up Ouishare Athens, and they decided to move forward even if the general atmosphere of the event was ambiguous and confusing. They could also understand the reasons why the majority of the participants were reluctant towards the idea of Ouishare, but their ambition to bring an interesting international network in Greece and their passion for sharing economy made them ignore the reactions of the others.
The event was anticipated as a Critical Turning Point mostly by the Greek Ouishare initiators, activists in sharing economy initiatives and friends of Shareable magazine, who were interested in establishing Ouishare Athens, but also by the rest of the organizing team. They were feeling the lack of one main node where they could share their interests, be informed about sharing activities in Greece and discuss on a different level, maybe more theoretical. They did not expect their activities to be entirely related to solving the social problems of Greek society but were more inclined towards exploring new ways of working, sharing, collaborating. For example, there is a lack of online sources such as blogs about sharing/collaborative/solidarity economy in Greek language, able to present not only the activities in the form of “news” but also a more theoretical or conceptual approach on the subject.
Finally, the event was anticipated as a beginning of a new “era”, one where many more events could be organized, in order to boost the awareness of sharing economy in Athens. The organizers and some of the participants were looking forward to Athens following the example of other cities such as Paris, where there are a lot of Sharing events organized attracting increasing numbers of visitors. Their hope was that social change would be facilitated and sharing economy would be promoted through such events in Athens as well.
However, due to the contestation during the event, and the postponing of the establishment of Ouishare Athens for later events, it ended up not being perceived as such a Critical Turning Point after the first meeting was over. Although some people were inspired to continue the process towards Ouishare Greece, it was clear to everyone that the network had already been strongly criticized.
Currently, three years later, this event of April 2013 is considered a Critical Turning Point as it was the only complete, “top-down” attempt to present and bring an international sharing economy in Greece. However the attempt failed almost from the beginning -it just managed to do a couple of small steps before the core team decided to quit due to the lack of interest from the Greek sharing economy groups.
Usually, in most cities where Ouishare operates, the course of action for the creation of a local Ouishare network is a bottom-up process. The process starts with a small, core group of people active in the sharing economy. They are usually people who write blogs about sharing economy, explore different tools and initiatives, and are also active in networks such as time banks, open source networks, etc. After this baseline situation is created, there is a critical moment when those people decide to self-organize, arrange a meeting and start connecting, discussing and being active at a collective level. The existence of many individuals with the same interests and characteristics, and their response to this call for collective action leads to the creation of the network / local manifestation of Ouishare.
However, usually Ouishare attracts a lot of entrepreneurs, probably due to the very professional and academic way that the network is presented with on its website. For example, when a new member wants to join the network, through the Ouishare website they are asked to indicate which of the topics they are interested in. The possible answers that are provided, are:
Therefore, Ouishare is not simply looking for enthusiasts or activists, or for people interested in solidarity ideas, its values seem to be more rooted in the business environment, academia, and startup scene. As a result, the network has a mixed crowd of entrepreneurs, young professionals, innovators. This makes it difficult to adapt to the Athenian context for two reasons. Firstly, in Athens the entrepreneurial scene (of this kind) is quite small. In addition, the successful startups leave the country once they succeed with their entrepreneurial goals, as the Greek institutional structure and tax system is not entrepreneur friendly. Therefore, the target group for Ouishare is quite limited in Greece at the moment. Secondly, building on the previous argument regarding the institutional setting, many solidarity initiatives choose to operate informally (or, better explained, unofficially) trying to ignore formal state structures.
The fact that Greece is in an “emergency response” mode, reinforces the ideology of such underground, solidarity initiatives and gives them practical reasons for existence. This fact, along with the lack of resources and the operation of such networks on a voluntary basis prevents them from being interested in shifting their attention to experimental, tech or innovative alternatives. However, apart from that, it has been observed that sometimes, people participating in solidarity initiatives can sometimes be older, narrow-minded, not interested in technological developments, the internet, etc. The fact that this type of solidarity economy flourishes in Greece, trying to actually help throughout the crisis, is an additional reason why the Ouishare network was not warmly welcomed.
Greek initiatives are at a different stage of evolution in comparison to initiatives from other countries: abroad, the idea of sharing is usually focused in doing something alternative and innovative, while in Greece it is more a solidarity response to social conditions, trying to cover specific needs rather than creating just an alternative.
However, according to an Ouishare member who was interviewed, rays of hope can be identified in the aforementioned situation: “there can be hope in all this, in the sense that when everything is falling apart, some people start having more free time (due to unemployment) to dedicate on something creative, different than what they were doing before”. The crisis itself can provoke a change of attitude towards creativity, need for evolution, sharing and solidarity.
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