Spaces of solidarity: the case of Athens’ refugee housing squats

Abstract

In 2015, fleeing wars, conflicts and poverty over a million of refugees and migrants had arrived in Europe. During this period, due to its geopolitical location as Europe’s gateway, Greece had become a major stopover in their journeys. While the refugee movements were framed through a narrative of crisis and anti-immigrant populism was on the rise in Greece, like in the rest of Europe, at the same time numerous grassroots solidarity initiatives towards people on the move had emerged. As a striking example of this solidarity movement, some activists had started to occupy vacant buildings in Greek cities in order to turn them into self-organized housing spaces for refugees and immigrants. These acts of squatting were not only carried out for providing housing to refugees and immigrants, but also for protesting immobilizing strategies and policies of the Greek state and the European Union. The purpose of this thesis is to explore the possibilities these self-organized refugee housing squats can open up for an alternative socio-spatial imagination. In order to examine this issue, two cases of refugee housing squats established during the so-called refugee crisis in Athens were presented and analyzed. Therefore, the thesis is based on a case study method. For constructing the cases, qualitative data was collected through document analysis. The theoretical framework of the thesis includes debates on space and place in anthropology together with a conceptualization of solidarity in relation to migration. The thesis argues that migrant solidarity activism might challenge hegemonic constructions of places and communities by forging new connections between different places and social groups.