Gender and Anticommunism in Children’s Social Protection in Postwar Greece The Role of Royal Foundations

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Published: Apr 15, 2024
DOI: https://doi.org/10.12681/historein.32281
Keywords:
gender elite women voluntary action welfare state Postwar Greece social protection children and youth anti-communism royal foundations mixed economy of welfare
Efi Avdela
University of Crete
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0225-5851
Dimitra Lampropoulou
National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4007-9529
Abstract

The article analyses the welfare activities provided by the Greek royal foundations in the period from their establishment in 1947 until 1968, focusing on their interventions concerning children and youth and their evolution over time. Placing the royal foundations’ activities in the Cold War and post-Civil War context, it argues that the intertwined state, parastatal and private initiatives, among which they had a hegemonic role, constituted the idiosyncratic Greek welfare state of the period, whose workings can be better grasped through the perspective of the mixed economy of welfare. Based on archival research, it highlights the gendered character of this specific version of welfare state-cum-mixed economy of welfare, and show that it was highly conservative, patriarchal and normative, based on ideological, political, class and gender exclusions. It depended on gendered massive voluntary action, especially women’s voluntary or low-paid work and elite women’s empowering activities.

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Author Biographies
Efi Avdela, University of Crete

Efi Avdela is Professor Emerita at the University of Crete. Her research focuses on the social and cultural history of the twentieth century, particularly in the areas of gender, feminism, crime, violence and criminal justice, youth, sexuality and voluntary associations. She has led and contributed to numerous collaborative research projects and has a substantial publication record in multiple languages. Currently, her research delves into postwar collective actions within the framework of the mixed economy of welfare, as well as exploring the history of penal jurors.

Dimitra Lampropoulou, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens

Dimitra Lampropoulou is Assistant Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Her primary research interests encompass the history of the twentieth century, with a focus on the history of youth, education, social movements, welfare, labor history, oral history, and memory. She has published books and articles in Greek and English and has actively participated in numerous interdisciplinary research projects in Greece and the European Union. Her recent research projects explore night schooling and the students’ movement in postwar Greece, as well as the mixed economy of welfare during the same period. She is a founding member of the Greek Oral History Association and a member of the Contemporary Social History Archives (ASKI), the journal Historein, and the European Labour History Network (ELHN).

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