Resilience and Positive Protest: How do Italian Solidarity-Based Purchase Groups Change in Times of Crisis?

The impact of economic crisis has been heavy, especially in Southern Europe. While top-down responses have been so far weak, bottom-up initiatives seem more lively. Under the pressure of hardship, ‘positive’ political consumerism practices are growing and changing. While their crucial features are already known, their reorganization in times of crisis and austerity is still to explore. The Paper especially deals with solidarity-based purchase groups (GAS) in a highly active and left-oriented area of Italy. GAS are one of the most organized, spread and well-estabished political consumerism practices in Italy and their potential as alternative form of resilience has already been showed. We wonder how crisis and austerity have contributed to shape new organizing processes and renew the membership of GAS. We further wonder which are the new frames individuals use to mobilise in a GAS. Research methods include document analysis, in-depth interviews, questionnaire to a small sample of GAS.