Paper details

Paper authors	Aila Spathopoulou
In panel on	Technology, Innovation and Experimentation in the Refugee Sector
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

In this paper we discuss how, over the last few years in Greece, ‘refugees’ have been recast as ‘undeserving migrants’. We suggest that the increase in migrant containment and multiplication of means of deterrence, on the one hand, and legal and political obstructions, on the other, can best be understood in light of the slippages from ‘refugee crisis’ to ‘migration crisis’. In this article, we take a closer look at the processes and governmental techniques involved in this change, asking the following: How are migrants hindered from accessing rights and the asylum procedure? and: To what extent are asylum seekers kept in a state of dependence on humanitarian actors? We engage with these questions in light of the shrinking figure of the refugee. Specifically, our focus turns to three aspects that affect asylum seekers’ lives and their access to rights: transit-stay narratives, technological disruptions, and recursive dependency. Methodologically, this article builds on fieldwork that we conducted in Greece in 2019 and 2020, both in Athens and on the island of Lesvos.

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