Urban scenes of citizenship: inventing the possibility of immigrants’ citizenship in Athens

Abstract

Cities have always offered multiple spatial settings for human acts that question existing order and create new forms of citizenship. Keeping in mind the Arendtian definition of citizenship as a superior ‘right to have rights’, this paper explores the emergence of scenes of citizenship in contemporary Athens, with regard to the public appearance of immigrants as actors that seek (or not) more than the recognition of separate rights. Some key contradictions that are revealed, such as those that concern the boundaries between private and public life, solidarity and disempowerment, sense of belonging and motivation to exclude, illustrate that acts of citizenship depend on the qualities of the urban scenes in which they unfold and that these qualities are in turn shaped by different articulations of power.

Keywords:

• Act
• appearance
• belonging
• power
• public sphere

Acknowledgements

This work was partially supported by the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme for research, technological development, and demonstration [grant 319970]. The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of European Commission. The author would like to thank the two informants for their generous participation, as well as Dimitra Pia and Alexia Tsouni who kindly brought him into contact with them.

Notes

1. The title of this section paraphrases a member of the immigrants’ collective Les Nomades de la Cité in Ioannina, Northern Greece. Explaining in a radio interview [http://media.radio-i.org/images/audio/diafores/150106_FRENCH_lesnomadesdelacite_nopasaran_internview.mp3] their decision to go on hunger strike in December 2010 demanding their unpaid wages, he said: ‘if we have to die, let it be under common view’.

2. See for example the statement of 35 academics at [http://www.tovima.gr/opinions/article/?aid=381171].

3. Patrolling the streets was not only a symbolic activity. Nearby squares had been targeted by fascist groups in the previous period and this specific district of the city center had already been a theater of violent racist and neonazi mobilization against migrants (Kandylis and Kavoulakos 2012; Dinas et al. 2016).

4. The first facility of this type among others that opened in the following months.

5. It has never been easy to estimate the total number of detainees in Amygdaleza and in other camps, let alone in the detention facilities in local police stations around Greece, kept under conditions of secrecy and lack of transparency (Flynn 2015). As of April 2016 the camp of Amygdaleza has never closed, despite various official statements to the contrary.

6. Video available at [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Npsr53XmQs].

7. There were reports that hundreds of detainees were locked in the despised containers, waiting for repairs to finish. See the report in Kathimerini: [http://www.ekathimerini.com/152999/article/ekathimerini/news/migrants-confined-to-huts-as-amygdaleza-centre-repaired-after-riot].

8. An invaluable resource for this activity and its actors is the documentary Raw Material by Christos Karakepelis (2011). Trailer at: [www.youtube.com/watch?v=X58snSaSzR4).