Abstract
After the imposition of austerity measures in response to the Greek debt crisis, and the subsequent refugee crisis of 2015, Greece has emerged as a site for experiments in and demonstrations of both internal and transnational forms of “solidarity.” International activists and volunteers have sought to demonstrate solidarity with Greece and Greeks. Meanwhile, the presence of refugees in Greece has generated extensive citizens’ initiatives and responses, through which many Greek nationals themselves—even under the burden of austerity—have sought to show solidarity with refugees. This chapter explores the multiple and sometimes conflicting meanings of solidarity with and in Greece and the dilemma of confronting and managing difference that simultaneously haunts and constitutes such initiatives.
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Notes
- 1.
Another example of resistance as art in documenta 14 included the ingenious theft of a piece of art by the collective LGBTQ + Refugees in Greece protesting what they saw as the event’s exploitation of refugees and migrants in Greece (both conceptually and practically), and what might be described as the impotence of art in the face of real problems. See: https://hyperallergic.com/382407/lgbtq-refugee-rights-group-steals-artwork-from-documenta-in-athens/
- 2.
The full text of the letter can be seen here: https://conversations.e-flux.com/t/open-letter-to-the-viewers-participants-and-cultural-workers-of-documenta-14/6393. An interview AAE can be found here: https://www.berlinartlink.com/2017/06/09/activism-documenta-14-an-interview-with-artists-against-eviction. The interview states that “AAE works closely with groups like LGBTQI + Refugees in Greece, but acts as a self-organised, swarm-like cultural social structure situated predominantly in and around Exarcheia, Athens… AAE is a collective of people who identify as artists and offer an alternative structure for a different future, by opening houses and communities that are beyond the state’s external authority. AAE tries to offer a haven for thousands of displaced bodies across Europe through culture and self-expression.”
- 3.
The claim that “we are all x or y” is clearly an important trope in many forms of international solidarity (see, for instance, Je suis Charlie). This has more recently been problematized in language such as “I stand with___,” as in recent international solidarity with German sea captain Carola Rackete.
- 4.
In this chapter, I am drawing on material that is publicly available and publicly known. I took part in City Plaza’s initiatives in April, May, and June 2016, and was a volunteer seeking to be part (in a very limited way) in what was a powerful and important project. I did not set out to conduct research there, and so this chapter cannot in good faith reference any material in what I witnessed and participated in. I remain enormously impressed at the projects of the squats. Further, leaders in the squats in Athens—many of them social scientists and even anthropologists—are deeply reflective of their work. As such, I highly doubt anything I say here is particularly new to this potential audience. What I do want to highlight, though, is the dangers associated with an uncritical approach to solidarity with refugees in Greece, which remains a powerful organizing frame for advocacy and activism more broadly.
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Cabot, H. (2020). Solidarity in Greece and the Management of Difference. In: McKowen, K., Borneman, J. (eds) Digesting Difference . Global Diversities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-49598-5_11
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