Bordering the city: an ethnography of everyday bordering practices in Athens, Greece

Papoutsi, Anna (2020). Bordering the city: an ethnography of everyday bordering practices in Athens, Greece. University of Birmingham. Ph.D.

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Abstract

This thesis presents an ethnographic study of everyday bordering and the people working with migrants in Athens. It looks at the (re)production of the EU border regime in the crisis-ridden city of Athens following the 2015 border crisis. The resulting dislocation of the border into the EU's territorial boundaries carved out a social space in which subjects were labelled, assigned moral value and subjected to differentiated mobility regimes and temporalities. This social space had its own materialities -the detention centre, the asylum service, the camp but also the school for migrant children and the squat housing migrants. The study focuses on three such spaces: the camp, the squat and the school to explore the encounters between the actors inhabiting them, the governance logics driving them, and the resulting practices. The thesis argues that these spatialised encounters fundamentally shape the practices that either reinforce or challenge the border. Building on bordered temporalities, the thesis ultimately claims that these practices and what different actors do with the time spent in these border spaces, are fundamental for the production or subversion of the border, as these negate or relinquish control over migrant time.

Type of Work:

Thesis (Doctorates > Ph.D.)

Award Type:

Doctorates > Ph.D.

Supervisor(s):