https://toarcheio.org To Archeio project site Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:39 +0000 en-GB hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.4.1 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-comparative-analysis-of-migration-control-strategies-along-the-western-and-eastern-mediterranean-routes-sovereign-interventions-through-militarization-and-deportation/ Mon, 04 May 2020 23:24:39 +0000 https://toarcheio.org/items/a-comparative-analysis-of-migration-control-strategies-along-the-western-and-eastern-mediterranean-routes-sovereign-interventions-through-militarization-and-deportation/ Continued]]> This paper is a historically informed comparative study of militarization and deportation efforts along the Western (Spain–Morocco) and Eastern (Greece–Turkey) Mediterranean migratory routes from 2005 to 2017. Based on extensive fieldwork on both sites, we argue that these two policy instruments go hand-in-hand in the construction of the European Union’s anti-immigration border and examine the continuities in their implementation along the two extremes of the Mediterranean basin. Our findings indicate that the origins of current militarization and deportation efforts in the Eastern Mediterranean (such as the EUROSUR system and the ‘Hot Spots’ approach) can be traced back to the Western Mediterranean and that they have been gradually expanded eastwards. Finally, the paper also demonstrates how militarization and deportation initiatives were implemented jointly by sovereign entities (the EU and member states), and by doing so it addresses the recent debates on the status of sovereignty. We provide evidence to support the argument that, rather than disappearing, sovereignty is re-articulated through cooperation among sovereign entities, despite occasional disagreements among them.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/migrating-from-pakistan-to-greece-re-visiting-agency-in-times-of-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:50 +0000 http://arc.local/items/migrating-from-pakistan-to-greece-re-visiting-agency-in-times-of-crisis/ Continued]]> This paper focuses on migration from Pakistan to Greece in an attempt to uncover the dynamics of the regulation of irregular migration (and asylum-seeking) in Greece. It examines the factors, policies, and actors that influence the plans, actions, and decisions Pakistanis make before leaving their country and when arriving in Greece. After setting the background against which Pakistanis enter and settle in the country, we trace these migrants’ decision-making process throughout their movement based on a series of qualitative interviews. While a variety of actors and factors are at play in the way people move from the one country to the other, masculinity emerges as the framework within which these come together.

]]> 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/the-mediatized-border-technologies-and-affects-of-migrant-reception-in-the-greek-and-italian-borders/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:47 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-mediatized-border-technologies-and-affects-of-migrant-reception-in-the-greek-and-italian-borders/ Continued]]> In line with the European self-description of its borders as a space of “humanitarian securitization,” this article approaches the border as a network of mediations around migrants and refugees, where emotions of fear and empathy co-exist through digital connectivities—what we call the “mediatized border.” Drawing on media, security, and gender studies, we demonstrate how such techno-affective networks are constitutive of (rather than simply complementary to) the border as a hybrid site of both military protection and care for the vulnerable. We do this through hermeneutic and participatory engagements with the two main border sites of the 2015 migration “crisis,” Italy and Greece, and discuss their implications on our understanding of the power relationships of human mobility.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/an-unexpected-reform-in-the-maelstrom-of-the-crisis-greek-nationality-in-the-times-of-the-memoranda-2010-2015/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:47 +0000 http://arc.local/items/an-unexpected-reform-in-the-maelstrom-of-the-crisis-greek-nationality-in-the-times-of-the-memoranda-2010-2015/ Continued]]> The article discusses the path of an important reform of the Greek Citizenship Code, starting from the initial introduction of the Citizenship Law in 2010, the public debate and reactions that followed leading to its partial annulation as unconstitutional in 2012, and finally, the developments until its restoration with a new law in 2016. This initiative introducing radical reforms for the Greek context took place in the midst of the public debt crisis, and thus has not been discussed accordingly. Until then, the issue of Greek nationality represented a non-issue in the political agenda of the country, since the issue of citizenship was considered ‘nationally sensitive’. The paper examines how such a reform is pushed forward during extremely difficult conditions, an unprecedented economic and political crisis, coupled by the largest refugee wave in the recent history of the country, having still an uncertain future/outcome.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/dangers-of-an-urban-crisis-within-the-european-union-fueling-xenophobia-and-undermining-democracy/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:45 +0000 http://arc.local/items/dangers-of-an-urban-crisis-within-the-european-union-fueling-xenophobia-and-undermining-democracy/ Continued]]> The global economic and financial crisis of 2007-08 has further intensified a social and urban crisis that undermines democracy and economic institutions internationally. Specifically, the economic crisis and the consequent austerity measures have resulted in greater exploitation in the labor market and job discrimination, in capital flight and undermined political and social institutions that provide for citizens. Xenophobia becomes again a burgeoning problem that is plaguing the European Union (EU) and needs to be addressed thoroughly for it can again undermine the democratic tradition of the region. This article concentrates on perspectives on the current migration crisis within the region of the EU that has spurred a spiral of xenophobic tendencies and a neo-liberal nationalist narrative. Particular emphasis is placed in the situations in Greece (the much attested “guinea pig” of the democratic experiment) and Italy.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/violence-and-extreme-right-activism-the-neo-nazi-golden-dawn-in-a-greek-rural-community/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:43 +0000 http://arc.local/items/violence-and-extreme-right-activism-the-neo-nazi-golden-dawn-in-a-greek-rural-community/ Continued]]> After years of marginal appeal in the electorate, Golden Dawn (GD), a hitherto minor grupuscule of the neo-fascist right, has experienced impressive and continuous electoral success in Greece since 2010. Ιn this paper, we focus on the micro-scale of local communities and explore how violence is used by a local activist in ways that attract sympathisers to GD. Employing ethnographic research in a rural community we observe an everyday rhetoric that gives GD a privileged position in the circulation of violence. We argue that, rather than being a collateral symptom of neo-fascist mobilisation, violence may under certain conditions be one of the strengths of extreme-right movements.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/socio-spatial-stigmatization-and-its-incorporation-in-the-centre-of-athens-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:34 +0000 http://arc.local/items/socio-spatial-stigmatization-and-its-incorporation-in-the-centre-of-athens-greece/ Continued]]> Considering stigmatization as a process ingrained into power relations, difference and contexts, this paper focuses on how socio-spatial stigmatization is deployed by specific social actors within a broader context of multiple stigmatization of social groups in the city of Athens, Greece. As such, it discusses imposed stigmatization, whereby stigma is attributed to a group and/or a place by external (to the group) actors and further explores what can be termed as ‘incorporated’ stigmatization whereby socio-spatial stigma becomes the central feature around which a group is formed and/or mobilized. Furthermore, in both cases, it explores the consequences of stigmatization, while raising further questions about (de)legitimization.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/the-politics-of-austerity-and-the-affective-economy-of-hostility-racialised-gendered-violence-and-crises-of-belonging-in-greece/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:32 +0000 http://arc.local/items/the-politics-of-austerity-and-the-affective-economy-of-hostility-racialised-gendered-violence-and-crises-of-belonging-in-greece/ Continued]]> In this article I examine the friction between xenophobic discourses on migration and the crisis caused by the politics of austerity in Greece. On the one hand, an ‘excessive’ influx of migration is managed through violent means by the state and the para-state; on the other, a ‘scarcity’ of domestic resources is blamed for a ‘rise’ in racist attitudes, and the political ascent of a fascist movement-cum-parliamentary party, Χρυσή Αυγή (Golden Dawn). ‘Crisis’ is said to give rise to ‘austerity’—and hostility. Inverting the inverted causal relationship between crisis, austerity and hostility, I problematise representations of hostility towards migrants that construct racism as a consequence of economic conditions or even as the antidote to the ‘bitter pill’ Greeks have been forced to swallow. I examine how racialised and gendered violence secures the politics of austerity in Greece focusing on three eruptions of violence (the feminicidal acid attack on Konstantina Kouneva, the murder of Shehzad Luqman and the drowning of eleven refugees near the island of Farmakonisi). I draw concrete connections between the politics of austerity and what, drawing on Sara Ahmed, might be termed an ‘affective economy of hostility’ that articulates racialised and gendered modes of belonging and estrangement. Some bodies are rendered vulnerable and precarious, while others assert an entitled relation to national space while being economically disentitled by austerity measures.

]]> https://toarcheio.org/items/greek-migration-policy-in-the-2010s-europeanization-tensions-at-a-time-of-crisis/ Tue, 16 Apr 2019 22:25:30 +0000 http://arc.local/items/greek-migration-policy-in-the-2010s-europeanization-tensions-at-a-time-of-crisis/ Continued]]> During the past two years Greek migration policy has seen important developments concerning the legislative framework for irregular migration/asylum management and migrant integration. Given that several among these developments are related to the transposition of related EU directives, one obvious answer might be that of Europeanization: these developments had less to do with the Greek government’s plans about migration, rather they were the direct impact of Europeanization; Greece simply transposed relevant EU directives. I am arguing here for a more careful reading of the Europeanization effect which not only distinguishes the differential impact of Europeanization on policies and discourses, but also actually shows how Europeanization tendencies at different level can contrast one another. The findings of this paper contribute to a better understanding of Europeanization processes. They highlight that Europeanization involves also resistance to Europe especially at times of crisis.

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