Modern Economic Geography of Crete: Large scale investments, economic crisis and restructuring at an intermediate development region

The project involves a study and overview of economic and geographical restructuring in the case of Crete, during the period of economic crisis, implementing concepts, theories and methods from the scientific traditions of Critical Political Economy and Economic Geography. Thus, according to main assumptions regional socio-economic change becomes a subject of the political economy of the European - Greek economic crisis, while the “region” and specific places are considered as open relational and social formations in dialectical interaction to external structures and transformations of global capitalism.
The project aims to contribute to the analysis and interpretation of the impact and effects of the economic crisis in Greece during the years 2009-2018, and more precisely to the investigation of current and future implications of a new development policy paradigm that focuses on large scale investments and further internationalization of domestic economy, for the purpose of national competitiveness, economic resurgence and economic growth.
To do this, research will draw learning from Crete, a region of intermediate performance in basic macroeconomic and development indices and from specific localities in remote and peripheral areas of the country, which attract the bulk of new strategic and large-scale investments and of the inflows of foreign capital especially in the tourism and energy industry, during the last few years.