https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 20 Apr 2020 12:59:37 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/the-rise-of-a-hesitant-eu-host-examining-the-greek-migrant-integration-policy-and-its-transformation-during-the-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:50 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-rise-of-a-hesitant-eu-host-examining-the-greek-migrant-integration-policy-and-its-transformation-during-the-crisis/ Continued]]> Greece lately, as a result of the crisis, has been transformed from a migrant receiving (host) country to a simultaneously migrant sending and receiving one. At the same time, processes of migrant de-integration from the economy and society have been manifesting too. This paper attempts to draw light on Greek migrant integration policy, which through the years has been characterized by a contradiction between policy narratives and concrete actions on the ground. More specifically, this paper brings to the fore a policy change that occurred during the period 2012–2015 and possibly continues up to now. According to this policy shift, special emphasis was put on the acquisition of the European long-term resident status from the part of already settled migrants as a passport to their intra-European mobility. Politically speaking, such developments were heralded as a win–win situation for both migrants, but also, Greece as a host country. Nevertheless, this rise of a hesitant EU host, who turned its integration policy into a managing migration endeavour, might be indicative of broader tendencies and trends within an expanded EU migratory landscape that includes both migration, but lately most importantly, asylum too.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/albanian-migration-in-greece-understanding-irregularity-in-a-time-of-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:48 +0000 http://arc.local/items/albanian-migration-in-greece-understanding-irregularity-in-a-time-of-crisis/ Continued]]> The third decade of Albanian migration to Greece signalled a historical change in the human geography of Greece’s largest migrant group. The impact of the economic recession and the visa-free regime for Albanians entering the European Union shaped a new fluid reality for Albanian irregular migration. This paper explores the impact of the socio-economic transformation processes on the migrants’ legal status vis-à-vis irregular status and integration dynamics. The emerging mobility strategies are conceptualized as a migrants’ agency that overcome socio-economic barriers or policy restrictions and navigate them. This paper goes beyond the legality-irregularity dichotomy, suggesting it is the multidimensional ‘in-between’ space of semi-irregular status where apparently ‘irregular’ Albanians interact with various forms of agency. Our aim is to explore how the irregular/legal nexus developed within the Balkan in the specific context of Greece. The empirical analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 94 Albanians and 13 stakeholders in Greece and Albania.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/economic-crisis-and-migration-visual-representations-of-difference-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:45 +0000 http://arc.local/items/economic-crisis-and-migration-visual-representations-of-difference-in-greece/ Continued]]> This article develops a perspective on African migrant integration, reflecting on the ‘visualization’ of migrant experience. It formulates some considerations on how integration of migrants can be captured, drawing on empirical material from street photography in modern-day Greece. The main research question concerns the role of visual images as sites for the construction and depiction of social difference. In that sense, their meaning goes beyond their content and they act as visual representations of discourses. The paper addresses this issue through a focus on local aspects of integration of sub-Saharan African migrants in the city centre of Athens. Specifically it looks at three themes related to discourses on migrant integration in today’s economic crisis: (1) the physical and social environment of marginalization, (2) the migrant body and (3) the fear of the migrant. On the basis of the findings a synthesis is attempted of several parallel existing representations in discourses about African migration. The synthesis betrays the ongoing struggle between, on the one hand, the dominant structures that the state creates to deal with their presence and, on the other, the migrant strategies for adaptation and inclusion, which in turn sustain the mechanisms and form integration takes in this context.

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