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Copyright © and Moral Rights for This Thesis Are Retained by the Author And/Or Other Copyright Owners. a Copy Can Be Downloaded Zaphiriou‐Zarifi, Viki (2017) Navigating (in)visibility : the everyday lives of African women in crisis Greece. PhD thesis. SOAS University of London. http://eprints.soas.ac.uk/26655 Copyright © and Moral Rights for this thesis are retained by the author and/or other copyright owners. A copy can be downloaded for personal non‐commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the copyright holder/s. The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders. When referring to this thesis, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given e.g. AUTHOR (year of submission) "Full thesis title", name of the School or Department, PhD Thesis, pagination. Navigating (in)visibility: the everyday lives of African women in crisis Greece Viki Zaphiriou-Zarifi Thesis submitted for the degree of PhD 2017 Department of Development Studies SOAS, University of London 1 Abstract Migrant women in Greece are not often seen as independent, active agents. A prevailing tendency to focus on men and families among academic researchers and policymakers alike, renders them largely invisible. When it comes to African women, however, processes of gendered racialization operate to make them also hyper-visible in stereotypical ways: as oppressed wives and mothers, uneducated domestic workers, and sexualised and/or dangerous Others. In a country in which national identity and belonging are strongly racialized, African women have long been subjected to processes of legal abjectification. In recent years, austerity, high unemployment and increasing anti-migrant sentiment have intensified their vulnerability in multiple ways. This thesis explores some of the more neglected aspects of economic crisis and migration in Greece. A feminist ethnographic enquiry that goes beyond traditional depictions of victimhood and dependency, it engages with the often hidden and complex lives of real women. Adopting a translocational analysis that considers women’s agency within contexts of social relations and structural power, the research illuminates how participants experience and respond to processes of legal abjectification and gendered racism in their everyday lives. Women are shown to deploy a variety of tactics aimed towards securing livable lives in terms of both material conditions and social intelligibility. They cope, adapt, negotiate and resist, often using – and sometimes disrupting – the modes of recognition available to them. The research illustrates how, in contrast to perceptions of them as ‘bodies out of place’, women create a sense of belonging in Athens. They do so not only through everyday home-making practices, but also by collectively mobilising to claim rights, counter processes of marginalisation and challenge who can and cannot belong. 3 Acknowledgments This project would not have been possible without the help of many people. I would like to thank my supervisors for their guidance, with special thanks going to Dr Anna Lindley for her insightful supervision throughout. I am greatly indebted to all the people in Athens who helped me during my fieldwork. My deepest gratitude goes to Lauretta McCauley and to all the women at UAWO, to Katerina Siskou for her assistance and care, and to Daphne Kapetanaki for planting the seed that began this journey and for helping me along the way. Huge thanks go to Sophia Kostoulas and the team at EPEK, and to Katerina Kaisidou and the Open Women’s Group at Babel. I would also like to thank Angeliki Serafeim and Anna Vouyioukas for taking time out of their busy schedules to do interviews with me and for providing invaluable insights. Heartfelt thanks go to my friends and family – especially to my parents for their love and support in this and all things. Lastly, but most importantly, I want to thank the women at the heart of this research who so generously trusted me with their stories. Without them this study would not have been possible and I am forever in their debt for the kindness and warmth with which they shared their lives with me. 4 Table of Contents Declaration .............................................................................................................................. 2 Abstract .................................................................................................................................... 3 Acknowledgments .................................................................................................................. 4 Table of Contents ................................................................................................................... 5 List of Figures ......................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter One: INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................... 9 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 10 1.2 The Crisis ................................................................................................................ 11 1.3 African women in Athens ..................................................................................... 15 1.4 Research Questions and Key Findings ............................................................... 19 1.5 Thesis Structure ...................................................................................................... 22 Chapter Two: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK ......................................................... 25 1.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 25 1.2 Beyond intersectionality: a translocational approach ........................................ 25 1.3 Livability .................................................................................................................. 26 1.4 Legal Abjectification .............................................................................................. 28 1.5 Gendered Everyday Racism ................................................................................. 30 1.6 Everyday Tactics .................................................................................................... 32 1.7 Practices of Home and Belonging ....................................................................... 33 1.8 Acts of Citizenship ................................................................................................ 35 Chapter Three: METHODOLOGY................................................................................. 37 3.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 37 3.2 Positionality and Reflexivity ................................................................................. 37 3.3 ‘The field’: Athens .................................................................................................. 40 3.4 Feminist Ethnography........................................................................................... 43 3.5 Methods ................................................................................................................... 48 3.6 Visual Diaries Project ............................................................................................ 63 Chapter Four: ENCOUNTERS WITH THE IMMIGRATION REGIME: Documents, status fluidity and abjectification ................................................................. 66 4.1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 66 4.2 The Immigration Landscape ................................................................................ 67 1990s: Establishing Immigration Policy in Greece ................................................ 67 5 Regularisation............................................................................................................... 69 Immigration Policy in ‘Crisis’ Greece ...................................................................... 72 4.3 The Women’s Stories ............................................................................................ 77 The Domestic Worker ..................................................................................................... 77 The Asylum Seeker ......................................................................................................... 80 The Refugee ..................................................................................................................... 81 The Victim of Trafficking ................................................................................................ 83 The Long-Term Resident ................................................................................................. 85 4.4 Status Fluidity: a defining feature of the Greek migrant experience .............. 87 4.5 Managing Fluidity of Status: negotiating, adapting and resisting .................... 89 4.6 Processes of legal abjectification of African women in Greece ...................... 93 4.7 The Undocumented: legal abjectification and social ‘death’ ............................ 99 4.8 Citizenship: formal belonging ...........................................................................
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