Immigration and Nationalism in Greece Cynthia H
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Florida International University FIU Digital Commons FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations University Graduate School 9-25-2013 Immigration and Nationalism in Greece Cynthia H. Malakasis Florida International University, [email protected] DOI: 10.25148/etd.FI14040854 Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd Part of the Social and Cultural Anthropology Commons Recommended Citation Malakasis, Cynthia H., "Immigration and Nationalism in Greece" (2013). FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations. 1280. https://digitalcommons.fiu.edu/etd/1280 This work is brought to you for free and open access by the University Graduate School at FIU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of FIU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY Miami, Florida IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALISM IN GREECE A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in GLOBAL AND SOCIOCULTURAL STUDIES by Cynthia Helen Malakasis 2014 To: Dean Kenneth G. Furton College of Arts and Sciences This thesis, written by Cynthia Helen Malakasis, and entitled Immigration and Nationalism in Greece, having been approved in respect to style and intellectual content, is referred to you for judgment. We have read this thesis and recommend that it be approved. _______________________________________ Roderick Neumann _______________________________________ Alex Stepick _______________________________________ Rebecca Friedman _______________________________________ Anna Triandafyllidou _______________________________________ Sarah J. Mahler, Major Professor Date of Defense: September 25, 2013 The thesis of Cynthia Helen Malakasis is approved. _______________________________________ Dean Kenneth G. Furton College of Arts and Sciences _______________________________________ Dean Lakshmi N. Reddi University Graduate School Florida International University, 2014 ii © Copyright 2014 by Cynthia Helen Malakasis All rights reserved. iii DEDICATION This dissertation is dedicated to my father, the late Professor John T. Malakasis, whose shining intellect, boundless love, and unwavering care and attention throughout the first 24 years of my life laid the world open for me, making possible this journey of exploration, achievement, and socially-mindful scholarship. I miss you, always. iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank all the friends, family members, colleagues and professors who stood by me during the seven years of my graduate career, making this work possible. In the university, my advisor, Dr. Sarah J. Mahler, but also my other committee members, Drs. Rod Neumann, Alex Stepick, Rebecca Friedman, and Anna Triandafyllidou. Dr. Mahler’s exacting standards of writing and analysis ensured the quality of this dissertation; what is more, my advisor kept pushing me forward until the last minute, and thus made sure I saw this project to its completion. Dr. Neumann’s insights on the ideology of nationalism were key in the way I positioned myself and this study theoretically. Dr. Stepick was also critical in this respect, but I’m also grateful for his friendly and supportive presence throughout. Dr. Friedman helped me keep in mind that my case study informs and is informed by the broader European context. Even though the committee’s external member, Dr. Triandafyllidou took this project personally, read through all my drafts diligently, and demanded that even the details were well crafted. Florida International University was very generous in providing me with financial assistance throughout my graduate career, in the form of teaching assistantships, a Doctoral Evidence Acquisition Fellowship, and a Dissertation Year Fellowship. The Miami-Florida European Union Center of Excellence also supported me through a research assistantship, as well as a Graduate Student Doctoral Research Award. Friends and family members who stood by me particularly during the writing period, reminding me of their love and concern or dragging me away from my books and v laptop for much-needed relaxation are too many to name here. A few merit special mention. Even during a period of life-threatening illness, fellow Team Mahler member Sharon Placide was constantly available to talk me past the agonizing doubts that this project would ever reach completion. My cousin, Natasa Papakonstantinou, generously offered me a classroom in her language school every time I needed a writing space during visits to our hometown. My mother, Dina Papakonstantinou, my sisters, Caroline and Tasia Malakasis, and my nephew, Kelly Malakasis Hay, endured my emotional and physical absence and frequent self-absorption during the years I spent preparing my research proposal, conducting fieldwork, and finally writing my dissertation with considerable grace and sympathy. Last, yet anything but least, two women, whose multi- faceted support made it possible for me to complete this process with my sanity more or less intact. Maria Polatidou and Karolina Schismenou, you know you are family by now. vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION IMMIGRATION AND NATIONALISM IN GREECE by Cynthia Helen Malakasis Florida International University, 2014 Miami, Florida Professor Sarah J. Mahler, Major Professor A source of emigration until the early 1970s, Greece has become home to a rising tide of immigrants since 1991, and its foreign-born population rose from below one to over 11 percent. Equally important is the fact that the Greek state has historically premised national belonging on ethnicity, and striven to exclude people who did not exhibit Greek ethnic traits. My study examines how immigration has challenged this nationalist model of ethnically homogeneous belonging. Further, it uses the Greek case to problematize the hegemonic assumption that the nationalist model of social organization is a human universal. Data consist of reactions to a 2010 landmark law that constituted the first jus soli bill in the nation’s history, and include a plurality of voices found in parliamentary proceedings, newspapers, a government-sponsored online forum and Facebook discussions. Voices examined correspond to three main conceptual camps: people who premise belonging on ethnicity and hegemonic definitions of what it means to be Greek, people who mitigate nationalist norms enough to include immigrants, but reproduce a nationalist worldview, and people who seek to divorce political belonging from ethnicity altogether. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE Chapter 1: Introduction 1 I. Introduction 1 II. Research problem and Background 3 III. The Greek Case Study – Why Study Greece 13 The European Context 17 The Greek Case 23 The Crisis Context 30 IV. Analytical Lens: Boundaries and Power 32 V. My Own Perspective 37 Chapter 2: Nationalism and Ethnicity, and the Greek Nation-Building Process 40 I. Introduction 40 II. The Origins of the Nation as a Social Form 42 The Nation as a Social Form Emerging with Modernity 43 The Theorists 43 (How) Do People Embrace Nationalism? 48 Ethno-Symbolism: The Nation as a Human Universal 50 Theories of Culture and Ethnicity 54 III. From Ethnic Coexistence to Homo Nationalis: The Greek Case 58 Heterogeneity as a Human Norm 58 From Rum Millet to the Nation of the Hellenes 64 Creating Homo Nationalis 73 IV. Conclusions 81 Chapter 3: Research Design 83 I. Introduction 83 II. Data Collection 84 Official Political Discourses 85 Newspapers 86 Online Fora 88 III. Data Analysis 92 Introduction 92 Analytical Methodology 93 The Analytical Process 95 Open Coding 95 Theoretical Coding 97 Data Sets 99 Online Fora 99 Open Gov 99 Facebook 102 Official Political Discourses 107 viii Newspapers 108 IV. Findings 109 Introduction 109 Conceptual Categories and their Properties 110 The Range of Voices 118 Presentation of Findings in the Data Chapters 119 Chapter 4: Debates on Mobility and Mixture 122 I. Introduction 122 Chapter Structure 126 Theoretical Foundation 129 II. Cross-Border Mobility 132 III. Ethnic Mixture 154 IV. Europe, Greece, and the Others 162 V. Conclusions 169 Chapter 5: (Re)Considering the Norm of Ethnic Descent 173 I. Introduction 173 Chapter Structure 177 II. The Principle of Ethnic Descent 179 Introduction 179 Ethnic Descent: Valid and Salient 181 Ithageneia versus Ipikootita 187 Ethnic Descent: Invalid and not Salient 193 Blood against Soil: Omogeneis versus Immigrants 199 III. Becoming Greek: The Alternative of Ethno-Cultural Assimilation 205 IV. The Principle of Stakeholding 212 V. Conclusions 216 Chapter 6: Nationality as a Matter of Citizenship 221 I. Introduction 221 Chapter Structure 228 Theoretical Foundation 229 II. National Membership as a Right, and “the Right to Have Rights” 231 Is Nationality Sufficient? 239 III. Immigrant Membership and its Effects on Collective Goods 242 Democracy and the Rule of Law 242 Employment and Public Spending 246 Social Cohesion, Order, Solidarity and Cohesion 248 IV. Conclusions 250 Chapter 7: Conclusions 252 I. Introduction 252 II. Research Problems and Questions 253 III. Findings and Contributions 259 ix The Greek National Context 259 National Identities and the Other 262 Nationalism 264 IV. Limitations and Directions for Future Research 265 BIBLIOGRAPHY 267 VITA 285 x LIST OF TABLES TABLE PAGE 1. Political Parties’ Positions towards the Jus Soli Bill 27 2. Open Coding Example 96 3. Newspaper Articles by Genre 109 4. Representing Cross-Border Mobility as Excessive and Out of Control 136 5. Representing