Keywords

1.1 Crises and Challenging Mobilities: A Multidisciplinary Approach from the EU’s South-Eastern Periphery

Notable migration related transitions took place during the past decade in Greece, a country that became the epicentre of the Eurozone crisis following the 2008 global financial crisis as well as the European Union’s (EU) main-gate during the so-called refugee crisis of 2015–2016. The present volume offers a novel, multidisciplinary perspective on the challenges and complexities of crisis-related mobilities, as well as an open-ended view of crises that takes into account the opportunities (Carastathis et al., 2018, p. 33), but also the constraints they pose for migration processes and the involved groups (Kousis et al., 2020).

Responding to the need for delving into less researched country-cases that aim to enhance our understanding of the broader dynamics related to international migration politics (Thiollet, 2019), the volume centres on the single case of Greece, both a sending and a receiving country at the South European periphery (King, 2018). Through a multidisciplinary perspective, the contributions in this volume, offer fresh insights on how crises interact with migration processes at the individual, organisational and macro levels concerning critical economic, humanitarian and governance emergencies, and thereby contributes to the migration literature.Footnote 1

The volume addresses issues related to the third (‘new’) emigration wave, representing a reactivation of periphery-to-core nation patterns about 50 years after it was last initiated (King, 2018; Pratsinakis Chap. 2 in this volume). The more recent exodus was a significant product of the severe political, economic and social impacts of the 2008 global economic crisis on Greece, a vulnerable, debt-ridden South European member state (Lapavitsas, 2019). The severity of this crisis on the country was reflected in the largest received International Monetary Fund (IMF) loan in history (in relation to quota) which was generally considered as a ‘rescue package for the banks, not Greece’ (Galbraith, 2016, p. 5). Under such conditions, Greece experienced the highest upsurge in the at-risk-of-poverty rate, a reversal of key development trends (Della Porta & Portos, 2020), high rates of relative deprivation (84.6%) and the highest unemployment rate in 2014 (26.5%) (Grasso & Giugni, 2016). Greece is referred to as an ‘extreme case’ because it has the highest number of bailout agreements and the largest number of protest events, compared to all other bailout recipient countries in Europe (Altiparmakis & Lorenzini, 2020). Compared to other Southern European countries, Greece also stood out for its drastic drop in political satisfaction, its intense national protest campaign against the Troika’sFootnote 2 memoranda, severe austerity policies (Diani & Kousis, 2014), and the institutionalisation of new, left and right challenger parties. Such conditions had a significant impact on people living within its borders, whether natives or migrants (see, e.g. Arapoglou & Gounis, 2017; Dalakoglou & Agelopoulos, 2018; Triandafyllidou & Kouki, 2013; Diani & Kousis, 2014; Doxiadis & Placas, 2018; Kafetsios, 2022; Kalogeraki, 2018a; Lekakis, 2017; Panagiotopoulou et al., 2019; Papataxiarchis, 2018). Affected by these conditions, the third wave of better-educated emigrants from Greece (compared to those of previous waves) moved primarily to the global North, especially to Europe (Triandafyllidou & Gropas, 2014), given EU’s freedom of movement for its member states.

In addition, this collection of original empirical and theoretical works, addresses issues concerning the so-called refugee, humanitarian, or migration governance crisis of 2015–2016, or the ‘crisis of the Common European Asylum System,’ when ‘in each of these two years more than 1.2 million asylum seekers submitted asylum claims in the EU’ (Niemann & Zaun, 2018, p. 3) the largest number, at the time, since World War II.Footnote 3 The sharp peak in the number of irregular migrants from Asia and Africa in Greece, an EU country under the impact of harsh Troika Memoranda and austerity policies, triggered a wide repertoire of reactions that reverberated through the EU, the Greek state, stakeholders, transnational actors, as well as local native and migrant communities (Brändle et al., 2019; Cinally & Trenz, 2018) – reactions that were not experienced during the previous smaller migration waves in Greece, such as those in the 1990s. During the summer and autumn of 2015 alone, approximately one million displaced people entered Europe from Turkey – half of them through the island of Lesvos (Papataxiarchis Chap.8 in this volume). Along with the displaced people, thousands of volunteers, activists and professionals from Non-governmental Organisations (NGOs) and International Organisations (IOs) arrived in Greece, responding to the humanitarian and governance crisis, placed especially at the borders and in the island of Lesvos (Paparaxiarchis Chap. 8, Parsanoglou Chap. 12, Mantanika & Arapoglou Chap. 10 in this volume). The 2015–2016 migration wave had become one of the top priorities of the European Commission, as European politicians became more alarmed, compared to the 1990s, due to the development of a ‘perfect storm’ that brought together societal, economic and political factors which had been largely unrelated in the past (Lucassen, 2018). Being EU’s main entry point, Greece was of paramount importance, as is visible in the EU-Turkey Statement and the implementation of the hotspots policy in its islands.

The present volume centres on the impacts of the two aforementioned crises. Albeit to a lesser extent, the volume also deals with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on displaced people arriving in Greece since 2015 and living in bleak conditions. The pandemic impacted heavily on these groups of migrants due to their confinement in crowded reception centres, with very limited health care, as well as encompassing surveillance mechanisms to contain, track and manage them in the camps (Triandafyllidou, 2022). This crisis concurred with related gaps in the protection of migrants, the retreat of the humanitarian regime, as well as the reproduction of existing repertoires of control and remaining risks linked to harmful infrastructures of neglect in Lesvos and Athens (e.g. Pallister-Wilkins et al., 2021).

The effects of the three different layers of emergency contexts in Greece have been multi-dimensional and cumulative, especially in reference to the 2015–2016 wave of migrants. The ‘refugee crisis’ alone is considered to be a multiple crisis, e.g. in terms of the high inflow of migrants and the EU political dimension (Triandafyllidou, 2018). This collection has therefore turned to more comprehensive definitions of ‘crisis’ aiming to grasp the wider complexities involved and move beyond definitions of specific crises. According to Graf & Jarausch (2017, p. 12):

Framing a problem as a crisis regardless of its contents and origins, politicians and intellectuals try to conjure up an imminent threat, one that demands an immediate and drastic response. The designation of any given situation as a crisis creates an exceptional state of emergency that requires unusual measures.

These types of measures are reflected in supra-state actions such as the Troika’s Memoranda and austerity policies (Kousis et al., 2020), EU measures controlling the arrival of displaced people through hotspots at EU external borders, sharing responsibility (via relocation and resettlement), and controlling irregular migration through border measures, the EU-Turkey Statement and Covid-19 related EU regulations (Niemann & Zaun, 2018).

Taking into account the multiple, complex and interlinked dimensions of crises related to the case of Greece, within a global context, we adopt the more open-ended approach by Carastathis et al. (2018, p. 33), whereby:

… crisis (from the Greek word κρίση [krisi]) suggests that in addition to the first sense of temporal interruption of a condition of normality, ‘crisis’ also refers to the critical act of judgment and thinking, which indicates a space of meaningful self-reflection. Following this logic, crisis can be seen as an opportunity to redefine what had seemed unquestionable and fixed.

In addition, we also view ‘crisis’ as a constraint, or a threat limiting positive action under conditions of urgency (Hassel & Wagner, 2016; Kousis et al., 2020). Adopting this open ended view of ‘crises’ the volume offers new knowledge on crises and mobilities involving Greece, EU regions and migrants from Asia and Africa, by highlighting migration-related opportunities and constraints created in the past decade at the individual, the organisational and macro-levels. Through rigorous and refined state-of-the-art examinations the volume contributes new knowledge on how international crises have affected local and national contexts as well as the lived experiences of migrants and host communities.

Although an increasing number of crisis-related works was produced, collective works on the economic crisis in Greece (e.g. Doxiadis & Placas, 2018; Kalogeraki, 2018a; Triandafyllidou & Kouki, 2013) have rarely addressed migration issues (as e.g. Labrianidis, 2011). Furthermore, collective works on the ‘refugee crisis’ or new emigrants in Greece are very limited. They adopt either a single-disciplinary, or a policy perspective (e.g. Dalakoglou & Agelopoulos, 2018; Damanakis et al., 2014; Frangiskou et al., 2020); others cover a broader period and range of issues concerning migration and refugees (Papageorgiou & Sourlas, 2019). Other than collective volumes, most crisis-related works on Greece have appeared in the form of individual articles or chapters examining specific issues (e.g. Carastathis et al., 2018; Cavounidis, 2018; Giannakopoulos & Anagnostopoulos, 2016; Kafe et al., 2018; Kalogeraki, 2018b; Kontogianni et al., 2019; Michail & Christou, 2016; Missiou, 2019; Papadopoulos, 2019; Papataxiarchis, 2018; Triandafyllidou, 2014).

Subsequently, this volume aims to provide a comprehensive multidisciplinary perspective on challenging mobilities arising during the 2009–2021 period and to continue the scholarship carried out on Greece and migration in the previous decade (i.e. Kolovos, 2011; Robolis, 2007; Triandafyllidou & Maroukis, 2010; Varouxi et al., 2010). Recognising the diverse theoretical perspectives in the field as well as the related inter-disciplinary challenges (Anthias, 2012; Castles, 2010), the volume engages contributors from Sociology, Anthropology, Political Science, Education, Philosophy, Sociolinguistics, Health Sciences, Law, Geography and Mathematics. Authors with mobility-oriented perspectives examine issues related to the new emigration from Greece, as well as those related to refugee and migrant governance, while authors adopting a migration approach analyse host perceptions, claims-making, solidarity and integration issues.

Centring on five key areas highlighted for their importance by its contributions, the collection at hand provides fresh and critical analyses and new knowledge on the interplay of crises with migration processes involving supra-state, state and non-state actors as well as citizens and migrants/displaced people, for the case of Greece. The five areas cover challenging mobility issues on, (i) crisis-driven emigration, (ii) crises-affected host attitudes, (iii) solidarity and claims-making under crises, (iv) mobility reception transitions in times of crises, and (v) perennial integration challenges.

Following the above introduction, the next Sect. 1.2 situates the contributions of the volume in reference to the existing migration literature across the five key areas and identifies related gaps. The applied multidisciplinary approach on the single country case of Greece is presented in Sect. 1.3 and the related contributions are highlighted by key area. New knowledge and fresh insights into challenging mobility issues are offered in Sect. 1.4, centring on crisis-related opportunities and threats affecting transnationalism, collective action, migrants’ political agency, governance and reception practices, secondary migration, and other aspects, based on an ‘exceptional’ South European periphery case. A very useful short overview to the volume follows in Sect. 1.5.

1.2 Crises and Migration Related Works on Greece: Situating the Contributions of the Volume

The ways that the crises of the past decade have impacted migration-related issues has been examined in reference to emigration from South European countries, to EU policies on the ‘refugee crisis’ as well as to the broader migration context in Greece. Below we present related works which are, in varying degrees, related to Greece as a case at hand, and identify lacunae associated with five key areas that have received less attention and are therefore highlighted as areas in need of fresh and critical analyses by the contributors of the volume; the first two areas relate more to the economic crisis, the remaining three are linked more directly to the ‘refugee crisis.’ These focus on crisis-related emigration, host attitudes, solidarity and claims-making, reception transitions and integration challenges.

Even though recent works offer comprehensive insights on the new emigration during the economic crisis period from southern to northern EU countries, or more developed regions around the world, analogous work on Greece is limited. The former focus on emigration of younger and better educated citizens leaving the countries of the old periphery of the European Union (including Greece) to seek a brighter future in more developed regions (e.g. Giousmpasoglou et al., 2016; King, 2018; Lafleur & Stanek, 2017). The latter, more limited works, usually centre on the exodus of more educated Greek youth moving to northern destinations (e.g. Giousmpasoglou et al., 2016; Giousmpasoglou & Marinakou, 2017; Labrianidis, 2011; Pratsinakis et al., 2017); they mainly focus on related policies and conditions in Greece, as well as on the profile of the emigrants themselves. Similarly limited are works on family and education issues under the third wave (e.g. Damanakis et al., 2014; Panagiotopoulou et al., 2019).

Part I of the volume offers Chaps. 2, 3 and 4 with fresh empirical findings to the above literature on major features of the third emigration wave from Greece, especially in terms of the emigrants’ motivations and aspirations (Pratsinakis Chap. 2), the attitudes of professional Greek PhD recipients towards potential engagement with their home country and related policies (Labrianidis & Karampekios Chap. 3), as well as the views and experiences of teaching staff in ‘non-mixed’ Greek schools in Germany with students from new-emigrant working-class families (Chatzidaki Chap 4).

Albeit limited, works based on national survey data concerning host attitudes towards migrants in Greece reveal that the economic crisis has led to an upsurge of intolerance towards migrants, primarily based on economic perceptions of threat (Kalogeraki, 2015). Subsequent national surveys show that the majority of Greeks believe that the impacts of immigration are negative, given the country’s limited resources (e.g. Dixon et al., 2019).

Chapters 5 and 6 of Part II further contribute in this area with fresh evidence on host attitudes reflecting the impact of the two crises. Kalogeraki (Chap. 5) focuses on Greeks’ attitudes specifically towards Syrian refugees, analysing national survey data on real and symbolic/cultural factors influencing indigenous attitudes. In addition, analysing comparative survey data on Greeks and Hungarians, Fokas et al. (Chap. 6) offer novel findings on national stereotypes, cognitive maps and social distance in reference to ‘Others.’

The remaining three areas covered by the volume centre on the ways the ‘refugee crisis’ has affected collective action and governance in Greece. As regards solidarity, protests and claims making in the public sphere since 2015, although these have been addressed by scholars to varying degrees, specific scholarship on Greece is limited (e.g. Afouxenidis et al., 2017; Andretta & Pavan, 2018; Kanellopoulos et al., 2021; Oikonomakis, 2018; Tsavdaroglou et al., 2019). Most works have typically dealt with the solidarity movement, protests and the ‘refugee crisis’ in European countries and cities, including, but not focusing on Greece (e.g. Agustín & Jørgensen, 2018; Della Porta, 2018; Lahusen et al., 2021), depicting new ways in which solidarity has been affected by the European ‘refugee crisis.’ Work has also examined the politicisation and the mediatisation of the ‘refugee crisis’ in Europe, but not on Greece (see e.g. Krzyżanowski et al., 2018; Triandafyllidou, 2018).

New insights on the above issues are offered in Chaps. 7, 8 and 9 of Part III on the complexities of contested solidarities in the public sphere, by thoroughly examining public claims making, the cycle of solidarity and the way protests by migrants themselves constitute claims towards cosmopolitan citizenship. Paschou et al. (Chap. 7) provide a systematic examination of the public political discourse in mainstream media on the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece between August 2015 and April 2016. Papataxiarchis’ (Chap. 8) ethnographic account on the island of Lesvos documents the rise and fall of the ‘solidarity to refugees’ movement between 2015 and 2018. Koukouzelis (Chap. 9) highlights the importance of cosmopolitan citizenship and centres his analysis on migrants’ agency in the Idomeni protests.

Transitions in mobility governance since 2015, have previously been investigated in terms of EU refugee policies and politics (e.g. Niemann & Zaun, 2018; Sansus et al., 2020), intra EU mobility and international migration (Trenz & Triandafyllidou, 2017), or its spatial (multi-level) dimension since the Lisbon treaty (Panizzon & van Riemsdijk, 2019), with comparatively few references to Greece. Related works centring exclusively on Greece are limited and examine the ways in which EU policies and measures have impacted on the reception of migrants at EU’s south-eastern external borders (e.g. Bartolini et al., 2020; Hatziprokopiou et al., 2021; Rozakou, 2017).

Chapters 10, 11 and 12 in Part IV contribute with new findings on the transitions in the governance of reception in Greece, especially since 2015–2016, following the EU-Turkey Statement. Mantanika and Arapoglou (Chap. 10) analyse the ‘secondary’ system of reception, established in-between the first reception and the longer-term plans for integration. Dimitriadi (Chap. 11) examines the bleak circumstances migrants experienced when reaching Greece, marked by strandedness and absence of information and divergent practices between those who were maritime and land border documented. Parsanoglou (Chap. 12) examines governance and sovereignty issues of the ‘refugee crisis’ and their theoretical and political implications, based on an empirical investigation for the case of Greece.

The new integration and migration governance challenges introduced since the ‘refugee crisis’ of 2015–2016 has been addressed in recent works with relatively few references to Greece (e.g. Duszczyk et al., 2020; Gregurović & Župarić-Iljić, 2018). Recent works on Greece remain limited in covering the complexities of the issues in relation to the crises; they address policy related issues, including those concerning basic needs and work (Afouxenidis et al., 2017; Bagavos & Kourachanis, 2021; Frangiskou et al., 2020; Manou et al., 2021; Papatzani et al., 2022). Chapters 13, 14 and 15 of Part V add to the above literature with fresh perspectives on the perennial integration challenges Greece was faced with during a period of consecutive crises, including the pandemic of Covid-19. Tramountanis (Chap. 13) critically evaluates the evolution of integration policies in Greece, whereas Stratigaki (Chap. 14) offers an in-depth account of migration governance challenges posed for the metropolitan case of Athens, during challenging times with multiple constraints. The Covid-19 pandemic crisis has had a significant impact on Greece, topping up two previous significant crises within a decade. Of special importance, the chapter by Petelos et al. (Chap. 15) critically investigates the challenges posed by the Covid-19 crisis on refugees and displaced people since the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece. Offering new analyses from current research and an interdisciplinary perspective, the authors highlight that Greece lags behind when it comes to the integration of public health and primary care policies, a context that impacts significantly on migrant populations within the country.

1.3 A Multidisciplinary Approach on a Single Country Case: Levels of Analysis and Migration During Crises

During the last decade, the study of issues involving migration and crises fostered diverse methodological approaches and tools to delve into the complexities brought by transitionary processes impacting on mobile lives. For instance, works covering this period highlight the importance of a ‘necessarily multi-disciplinary’ approach on irregular status migrants in Europe (Triandafyllidou & Spenser, 2020, p. 2), or on the fourth wave of Portuguese migration (Pereira & Azevedo, 2019). There remains however the need for more multi-disciplinary works particularly by examining the connections between the micro, meso and macro levels of analysis, with the different methodological approaches and tools each discipline offers; this approach also involves case studies that require the command of local language and locally lived experiences (Mbaye, 2019; Skeldon, 2019; Thiollet, 2019).Footnote 4

The volume embraces contributions offering analyses based on different disciplinary and methodological approaches from social sciences, humanities, law, health sciences, and mathematics, thereby facilitating the incorporation of both macro and micro level analyses (Mbaye, 2019) and the identification of connections between those levels of analysis (Skeldon, 2019). Using predominantly Greek sources and material (e.g. newspapers, legal and policy documents), the authors bring together fresh and rich evidence produced via a wide variety of methodological approaches ranging from philosophical analysis and ethnographic fieldwork, to participant observation, qualitative in-depth and semi-structured interviews, mixed methods, policy analysis, political claims analysis, desk research, as well as quantitative online surveys. Through these approaches, the contributors examine the depth and breadth of the complexities and entanglements of mobility related issues during an intensive period of crises in Greece, for each of the five key areas covered.Footnote 5 In so doing, the volume also highlights the multi-spatial aspects of the issues under study (Skeldon, 2019, Thiollet, 2019).

Following this approach, the analyses on third wave emigration issues in Chaps. 2, 3, and 4, enhance our understanding on the connections between individual and context related issues from Greece to Western countries. In his micro level social geography analysis Pratsinakis (Chap. 2) identifies three types of emigrants on the basis of 34 qualitative interviews and a web based respondents’ survey. Macro-level analysis on return policies and brain drain in Greece are combined by Labrianidis and Karampekios (Chap. 3), with new micro level economic analysis of a large survey on motives of emigration and intentions to return by approximately 11,000 PhD holders. The authors address the need to develop policy initiatives creating ‘bridges’ for the return-reconnect of emigrant professionals. Focused on new emigrant families and Greek schools in Germany, Chatzidaki (Chap. 4) aptly combines micro-level data from qualitative interviews with teachers and a critical exploratory account on these schools, at the meso level, to discuss macro level policies on ‘Greek state schools’ in Germany.

Different disciplinary approaches and levels of analysis on the attitudes of natives towards migrants (Chaps. 5, 6 and 8) offer a more nuanced view on the links between the individual and the community level which takes into account the national samples of (micro) attitudes during a specific time point, but also the rich diachronic account of attitude shifts in a specific community. Kalogeraki’s (Chap. 5) sociological analysis at the micro level illustrates opposition attitudes of Greeks towards Syrian refugees in 2016, based on data from a large national survey. Fokas et al. (Chap. 6) sociological analysis on self-positioning, stereotypes, cognitive maps and in-group/out-group social distance uses comparative national survey data (2016 and 2017) on Greeks and Hungarians. Papataxiarchis’ (Chap. 8) anthropological examination based on ethnographic research in his own anthropological village in Lesvos, but also the centre of the humanitarian crisis, lucidly documents the rise and fall of ‘solidarity to refugees.’ The complementarity of the two disciplinary perspectives contribute towards a more comprehensive and refined portrait of host views towards migrants and refugees.

Examined through philosophical, sociological and anthropological conceptual and methodological tools, collective action and political claims in the public sphere document a contested solidarity cycle since 2015, involving local, national and transnational arenas (Chaps. 6, 7, 8, and 9). Papataxiarchis’ (Chap. 8) ethnographic study documents how the community’s micro-macro interactions between locals, displaced people, solidarity activists and local authorities, including the ‘pogrom’ against 150 Afghan asylum seekers, depict a cycle of ‘ephemeral solidarity.’ Philosophical analysis, at the macro-level, by Koukouzelis (Chap. 9) moves beyond migrant agency claims which challenge the state’s supposed ‘right to exclude’ and highlights the importance of cosmopolitan citizenship, based on the largest migrants’ protests in the country, in Idomeni, targeting all involved states, on March 2016. Focused at the meso level, sociologists Paschou et al. (Chap. 7) illustrate the dynamic interplay between (meso-level) discourse-claim making and (macro) socio-political context, using a random sample of political claims on the ‘refugee crisis’ in Greece between August 2015 and April 2016, drawn from three national newspapers. In a different meso-level approach using press reports, Fokas et al. (Chap. 6) apply socio-semantic network analysis based on the compilation of word co-occurrences in two established Greek dailies and two Hungarian ones and investigate how media frames influence the attitudes of Greeks and Hungarians.

Underscoring organisational and context related limitations, Chaps. 10, 11, 12 and 14, focus on the governance of refugee/migrant mobility through reception practices in the south-eastern (Greek) borders of the EU. By examining the interplay between macro-level conditions, such as the political, policy and regulatory context and the ‘secondary’ system of reception (meso-level), Mantanika & Arapoglou (Chap. 10) offer an in-depth account of changes in the dynamics of inclusion and the ways these interact with the development of the reception as system. Centring on bordering practices at the meso level through qualitative interviews with the migrants themselves, Dimitriadi (Chap. 11) also spotlights the bleak circumstances they face when reaching Greece. These include experiences of strandedness and divergent reception practices, depending on their entry points, period and ethnic origin. Parsanoglou (Chap. 12) combines interview findings with macro level analysis to document the ‘new geographies of control’ under the EU-Turkey Statement and the hotspot system. Additionally, he examines reception practices (meso level) and the ways in which mobility was controlled internally, under the new hotspots regime, using qualitative interviews with key stakeholders and volunteers. Finally, an insider’s view on urgent policy challenges is provided by social policy expert and former vice mayor of Athens, Stratigaki (Chap. 14), who focuses on meso level organisational factors and the related political, social and economic context.

In the last section, integration challenges are mostly analysed at the macro level (Chaps. 13, 14 and 15). Through the critical examination of integration related legislative and policy frameworks in Greece, Tramountanis (Chap. 13) offers a macro-level analysis over a 30-year period traced in four phases. The analysis illustrates that integration has not been a priority for the Greek state and that de-integration characterises the crisis period. Stratigaki (Chap. 14) refers to the significance of these limiting contextual factors in her study of how city authorities in Athens struggled to overcome constraints and political obstacles rooted in the public sector. Challenges of integration in the Greek capital face constraints related to the lack of a coherent strategic plan and a xenophobic environment. Contextual factors on Covid-19 related migrant health policy and the institutional regulatory system at the national and supra-national levels are critically evaluated by health and legal experts mostly through macro level analysis (Petelos et al. Chap. 15). They document the impact of the macro context at the (meso) level of the refugee settlements and highlight the (macro level) obstacles to health care provision for refugees and displaced people.

1.4 New Knowledge on Crises and Mobilities from the EU Periphery

Grounded on an open-ended view of ‘crisis’ not only as temporal interruption, but also as opportunity (Carastathis et al., 2018) and constraint (Hassel & Wagner, 2016; Kousis et al., 2020), the volume singles out migration-related opportunities and constraints that surfaced in the 2009–2021 period in the form of transnationalism, contested solidarity, migrants’ political agency, and governance, in an ‘exceptional’ South European periphery case, Greece. The new knowledge illuminates the dynamic interactions between crises and migration processes involving supra-state, state and non-state actors as well as citizens and migrants, or displaced people.

1.4.1 Third Wave Emigration and Transnationalism from Below and Above

The economic crisis can be seen as an opportunity of increasing transnationalism from above (e.g. home country policies affecting migrants), or from below such as migrant practices in relation to individuals and civil society (Tedeschi et al., 2020, p. 3 & 7). The impacts of Troika Memoranda and austerity policies in the crisis period were significant in intensifying and exacerbating the third (new) wave of emigration from Greece which had begun before that period, especially for highly skilled youth (Pratsinakis Chap. 2 and Labrianidis & Karampekios Chap. 3). The crisis acted as an opportunity of transnationalism from below for emigrants of different skills, education levels and ages, who largely construed it as the extra push needed to leave for better prospects and the fulfilment of their aspirations in Western urban centres. The crisis allowed the lifting of social constraints on long distance mobility, creating further opportunity for these emigrants. In addition, such opportunities expanded migrants’ transnational networks, while they were also facilitated by the freedom of movement within the EU (Pratsinakis Chap. 2), reflecting transnationalism from above.

New emigrant families mostly from lower-SES backgrounds, moved to Germany for better economic prospects as well. This created an important opportunity for the Greek state schools in Germany, depicting transnationalism from above through home country policies. Initially established in the 1970s these ‘K-12 schools’ faced a drop in their numbers before the crisis, but experienced a significant increase in their student body in the past decade. Furthermore, the faculty/teachers of the schools perceive them as important institutions assisting new immigrant youth (of different ethnic origins) from Greece to adjust to their new environment (Chatzidaki Chap. 4).

In addition, opportunities for transnationalism-from-above after the third emigration wave have also surfaced in the form of (virtual) return policy options, such as the ‘Knowledge and Partnership Bridges’ initiative aiming to support the development of the country by connecting highly skilled emigrant professionals in Europe or North America with their communities of origin. The new survey findings show that more than half of the professional emigrants themselves are also willing to offer their services, or are already offering such services from abroad, thus also reflecting transnationalism from below (Labrianidis & Karampekios Chap. 3).

1.4.2 A Cycle of Pro-Migrant Solidarity

The humanitarian and governance dimensions of the ‘refugee crisis’ created opportunities for solidarity actions and public claims making by an unprecedented variety of grassroots, national and international groups as well as (non-state) organisations at the borders and reception centres, the local communities of the frontline, as well as the hotspots and large cities in Greece and in Germany (e.g. Kanellopoulos et al., 2021). Chapters 7, 8, 10, 12 and 14 add new knowledge based on contextualised in depth examinations at the community and national levels as well as at reception sites. A cycle of ‘solidarity’ that emerged to support urgent needs of Greeks confronting the negative impacts of the economic crisis since 2009 (Loukakis, 2020), was extended to support the irregular migrants in meeting daily needs. It was produced from below, in frontline Aegean communities of EU’s external border in Greece during 2015, but lasted until the spring of 2016. Under the auspices of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, international and Greek NGOs as well as grassroots and informal initiatives (e.g. ‘Solidarians’) offered services to address the needs that the state alone was not able to, due to the massive flows of irregular migrants. A caring border was produced, which reached more than 3000 non-local volunteers and activists in Lesvos, during the peak of the crisis (Papataxiarchis Chap. 8).

The activists and volunteers of informal and formal Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) participating in solidarity actions formed a ‘bottom-up governmentality’ representing both formal charities, NGOs, or humanitarian organisations as well as ‘counter-folding’ grassroots and local solidarity initiatives, but also transnational action organisations (Mantanika & Arapoglou Chap. 10). They coexisted and interacted in specific periods and spaces, from Lesvos to the Piraeus port and camps such as Idomeni (Parsanoglou Chap. 12). They also collaborated with Athens municipality authorities under Kaminis’ centre-left (PASOK)Footnote 6 governance framework involving the public sector, the private sector and civil society to provide social solidarity services and to combat xenophobic reactions (Stratigaki Chap. 14).

In the Greek public sphere CSOs were addressees of political claims making from 2015 to early 2016, a period of intense humanitarianism, with the dominant narrative being a plea for transnational and humanitarian support and just burden sharing. However, since March 2016 following the closure of the Balkan route and the EU-Turkey Statement, the public discourse expanded and diversified. During this time, refugee groups themselves, as well as informal and formal action organisations became claimants (Paschou et al. Chap. 7). Overall their claims were more diversified compared to the other claimants, centring on migration management, refugees’ background, social consequences or problems and civic activities, with more than half being linked to noncontentious (nonprotest) actions.

Civil society groups and individual citizens were visible through their speech acts (39.2%), involvement in protest (44.8%) and direct solidarity/humanitarian aid (13.3%). When it comes to the claims of the refugees and their supporting groups, there is a prevalence of claims in confrontational actions – illegal demonstrations and self-imposed constraints – such as hunger strikes, suicides and blockades. All related claims referred to the inhumane conditions and emergency situations experienced in the refugee camps (Paschou et al. Chap. 7).

1.4.3 The Political Agency of Migrants Themselves and Cosmopolitan Citizenship

There is limited scholarship on migrants and refugees themselves as political agents (e.g. Thiollet, 2019, p. 118; Andretta & Pavan, 2018Footnote 7). During the past decade the humanitarian and migration governance crisis of 2015–2016 formed opportunities for the creation of actions and claims by the migrants themselves in different key migration sites in Greece. Through a multidisciplinary lens, Chaps. 7, 8, 9, 10, 12 and 13 provide refined analysis on this understudied issue, with relevance beyond Greece.

At the national level, public sphere political claims by the refugees themselves and their supporting groups constituted about one tenth of all claims; they referred to the inhumane circumstances and emergency situations the migrants experienced in the refugee camps. They increased especially since January 2016, but climaxed in the spring of 2016 (as most claims in Greece did), given salient developments of the period, including the closing of the Balkan route, the refugees’ protests in Idomeni and the EU-Turkey Statement. These claims were more often expressed through confrontational protest actions, including illegal demonstrations, self-imposed constraints, such as hunger strikes, suicides as well as blockades (Paschou et al. Chap. 7).

The hotspots policy and the EU-Turkey Statement which posed severe limitations on asylum-seeker transit, during the SYRIZAFootnote 8-ANELFootnote 9 coalition government (2015–2019), shaped opportunities for two notable cases of contentious actions by the migrants themselves, those of Idomeni in 2016, when the Balkan route closed and those of Sappho Square in Lesvos by asylum seekers from the Moria hotspot, in 2018 (Chaps. 7, 8, 9, 10, and 12).

When the EU-Turkey Statement left 46,000 migrants trapped in Greece, in urgent need for food, medical help and shelter, migrants of different nationalities united in intense protests from March to May 2016, including the ‘March of Hope,’ blockades of highway and railroads, as well as acts of self-harm. Refusing to be represented by nonmigrant NGOs or supporting-Greek citizens, they demanded the ban of border crossing for migrants and targeted all responsible EU and state actors. Illustrating ‘cosmopolitanism from below’ the case of migrant protests in Idomeni calls for cosmopolitan citizenship, a matter of justice and urgent importance, following Arendt (Koukouzelis Chap. 9).

A peaceful occupation that lasted almost one week in April 2018, by about 150 Afghan men, women and children asylum seekers from the Moria hotspot ended in a ‘pogrom’ when a group of approximately 200 right-wing extremists and hooligans violently attacked the Afghan squatters (Papataxiarchis Chap. 8). The occupation of the migrants themselves was part of a series of protests since March 2016, with claims related to inadequate health services, bad living conditions and movement restrictions.

The volume therefore highlights the salience of public discourse and protests by migrants themselves at the external EU border in Greece. Through a multidisciplinary view, it points to the importance of transnational claims on citizenship and migrants’ empowerment as well as to the significance of migrants’ autonomous political participation in the public sphere. It thereby contributes to related debates (e.g. Cohen & Van Hear, 2019; Della Porta, 2018) as migrant emergency flows continue even more drastically in 2022, with war refugees from Ukraine.

1.4.4 Crises’ Driven Host Attitudes and Xenophobic Acts

Even though the economic crisis led to opportunities for Greek emigrants, it simultaneously fuelled already existing anti-immigrant rhetoric and led to a nationalist intolerance (Triandafyllidou & Kouki, 2014). When combined with the ‘refugee crisis’ it led to restraining attitudes, actions and policies (Chaps. 5, 6, and 8). The dual crisis heightened negative attitudes by parts of the native population towards the new migrants and increased xenophobic actions by ultra-right and more conservative groups. Such negative actions are illustrated in the anti-immigrant protests that occurred in crises-stricken Greece (2007–2016), especially under Golden Dawn (GD)Footnote 10; they were nevertheless strongly correlated with antifascist mobilisations,Footnote 11 which affected their development (Ellinas, 2020). These reflect ‘contentious solidarity’ actions, especially visible since the global financial crisis (Della Porta & Steinhilper, 2021).

New, national level evidence shows that the two crises triggered socioeconomic concerns and symbolic threats in Greece which, in turn, activated considerable opposition towards Syrian refugees: seven out of ten Greek respondents had a negative stance, as Kalogeraki (Chap. 5) illustrates. She also finds that being more likely to compete with them in the labour market, respondents with lower income, educational level and occupational class were more likely to strongly oppose Syrian refugees; different cultural characteristics of these refugees (such as religion) form an additional perceived threat. A similar, significant crisis-driven impact in the form of threats is documented in the bi-national survey on representations of ‘Others’ in Greece and Hungary. The findings by Fokas et al. (Chap. 6) on national stereotypes, cognitive maps and in-group/out-group social distance illustrate the representation of ‘Others’ as a source of threat, in both countries. Complementing and supporting these findings, their comparative media analyses of Greek and Hungarian mainstream press showed substantial shifts between pre- and post-crisis patterns. Both of their analyses reveal a polarised rearrangement of the imageries of ‘Others’ in the Greek as well as in the Hungarian national contexts.

At the frontline of the ‘refugee crisis’, in Mytilene, the impact of the two crises is especially visible after March 2016, in the form of perceived threats, hostile attitudes and acts against refugees by groups of xenophobic locals. As Papataxiarchis (Chap. 8) documents, these marked the fall of ‘refugee solidarity’ patriotism, leading to increased xenophobic actions, especially visible in the ‘pogrom’ of mass violence against Afghan asylum seekers who occupied the town’s central square with claims related to being restricted on the island and to the bad living and health care conditions at the hotspot. Police-pressed charges against instigators of the attack are still under judicial investigation in the most serious incidence of xenophobic violence on the island, and one of the most serious in Greece. These mark a shift towards xenophobic intolerance and violence while pointing to the rise in intolerance and violent acts against migrants’ political autonomous agency 2 years after the ‘refugee crisis.’

1.4.5 Crisis-Steered EU Migration Governance: Multiple and Increasing Constraints for Migrants, Reception Infrastructures and National Policy

EU’s reaction to the migration governance crisis through the ‘hotspot’ approach, the EU-Turkey Statement, the Law on Asylum (4375/2016) and related measures was drastic, and highly penetrating in the case of Greece, leaving it with a higher share of responsibility and creating numerous constraints related to migration issues (Chaps. 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15). A viable restructuring of responsibility across member states did not occur, while securitisation and externalisation of responsibilities by the EU now dominate human rights and refugee protection considerations (Niemann & Blöser, 2021). The chapters above contribute with new knowledge on how these impacts of the EU’s response were experienced more as constraints at the individual migrant level, at the infrastructural organisational level, as well as at the national policy level.

The governance of migration in Greece included containment practices, geographical dispersal, deterrence policies and redirection of migrant journeys. Dimitriadi’s (Chap. 11) analysis sheds new light on the complexity of migrants’ decisions on further mobilities, as well as on their insecurity and marginalisation by documenting how encounters between migrants and border actors from 2016 to 2018 were often more crucial than the border crossing itself in shaping migrants’ lives – leading to containment, dispersal, or onward movement. She shows how inclusion or exclusion from critical services (e.g. asylum and accommodation) was produced through the construction of administrative and legal barriers under reception conditions and how migrants’ experiences both at the border crossing itself and with the border agent were influenced by entry point, nationality, gender, family status and time of arrival in Greece.

EU policies from 2015 to 2019 were significant obstacles for inclusive practices performed by international humanitarian organisations and grassroots solidarity initiatives in Greece. They led to the shaping of reception into a more complex infrastructure, with funding being outsourced to supranational and non-state institutions, according to Mantanika & Arapoglou (Chap. 10). Through a Foucaultian analysis, they illustrate the production of precarity – concerning the duration of provisions and the form of settlement – through governmentalities of inclusion in spaces of reception. In addition, they document governance transitions in the ‘refugee crisis’ by tracing how informal practices of screening and sorting migrants and refugees became established policies and how precarious settlement now has more permanent characteristics.

The new governance regime of the EU-Turkey Statement and the hotspot system, not only shifted outwards, but also created internal buffer zones within EU spaces, especially within Greece and more specifically within spaces of detention and processing, in particular islands, as Parsanoglou (Chap. 12) shows. He emphasises how state sovereignty was repositioned in the management of migration through the active involvement of non-governmental organisations, international organisations and EU agencies.

The 2016–2020 period was marked by infrastructural changes, especially on containment and deterrence issues –differing from the 2009 to 2015 period of ‘dis-integration of immigrants’ in Greek state policies– based on Tramountanis’ analysis (Chap. 13). These changes included the establishment of the Ministry of Migration Policy in 2016, under the SYRIZA-ANEL government. In 2019, under the New Democracy government, the Ministry of Migration Policy was merged with the Ministry of Citizen Protection. He highlights the impacts of the economic crisis as well as the ‘refugee crisis’ and related EU policies on Greek state policies, as most state measures hinder the integration prospects of migrant populations, by concentrating in the management of migrant flows, the control of borders, police checks, or illegal immigrants and in streamlining the process of issuing permits for residence and work. The state sponsored HELIOS programme (Hellenic Integration Support for Beneficiaries of International Protection) forms an exception to these.

The lack of a coherent national strategy pressured the Municipality of Athens to adopt innovative strategies, especially since late 2014 when it witnessed the arrival of large numbers of refugees and migrants from the Aegean islands, most of whom were ‘transit’ asylum seekers, according to Stratigaki’s analysis (Chap. 14). She emphasises the need for durable state reforms and policies and a National Strategic Plan for the successful social integration of refugees. Simultaneously she shows how under harsh political and economic conditions, changing legal frameworks, bureaucratic barriers and xenophobic reactions, the administration of the city of Athens was able to develop goods-and-services provision policies to respond to migrants’ needs.

In reference to the Covid-19 crisis, the critical examination by Petelos et al. (Chap. 15) highlights the pervasive effects of the continuation of pre-existing problems, the lack of a cohesive approach to risk communication and the absence of an effective triage system in the immigrant camps. More importantly, their interdisciplinary analysis points to the need for human rights solidarity, for a comprehensive Common European Asylum system, and for a comprehensive Global Health Policy towards the protection of refugees as well as non-displaced people. Such policies, which they recommend, encompass global health security considerations and ensure that the implementation of programmes is both feasible and context relevant.

1.5 Closing Note

With its undivided attention to critical junctures of crises and migration, the collection at hand can serve as a unique comprehensive resource for students and scholars in social sciences and humanities, in health and legal sciences, as well as for policy-makers, working on migration-related issues within and beyond Europe. On the one hand, the volume contributes to migration scholarship by pointing to the advantages of the multi-disciplinary single-country approach offering complementary analyses at the individual, organisational and macro levels. On the other hand, the contributions feature the ways in which the economic crisis, the ‘refugee crisis’ and to a lesser extent the Covid-19 pandemic, led to opportunities as well as constraints that have greatly affected migration related processes in an EU country. As curators of this volume, we strongly hope that this collection of diverse analyses on a decade of consecutive crises in a single European country can instigate further deliberating on migration and crisis, in terms of host receptivity, solidarity and governance issues, as these are reflected in mass migration emergencies, such as in the case of refugees entering the EU due the war in Ukraine.