Diasporic Homecoming and Transnational Flows in Times of Crisis: Economic Strategies and Mobilities of Greeks from the Former Soviet Union in Thessaloniki

Abstract

This chapter discusses the development and transformation of the economic activities of Greek migrants from the Former Soviet Union (FSU), and how these were shaped through two different periods of uncertainty and crisis: by the transition shock following the fall of the Soviet Union which led to various migration waves all along the 1990s, officially referred to as repatriation by the Greek authorities, and by the Greek financial crisis of 2010. Based on ethnographic research including semi-directed interviews in Thessaloniki, it traces the formation of economic networks of the Greek migrants from the FSU and their mutations depending on changing global economic and social frameworks. We try to show how these diasporic networks serve as the foundation of economic action and social reproduction notably in times of economic uncertainty. By examining the birth and evolution of specific sectors of ethnic economies, such as the tourism sector and the fur trade or the Russian products shops, we argue that the economic strategies of FSU Greeks are embedded in wider social and economic structures and more specifically to national and transnational diasporic and post-Soviet networks. Broad mutations and uncertainty seem to affect how these networks are shaped and how economic action, mobility and sentiments of community belonging are structured within them.