The Politics of Hospitality: Racism, Security and Migration in Contemporary Greece, 19902012
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The Politics of Hospitality: Racism, Security and Migration in Contemporary Greece, 1990-2012 Christos Pallas A thesis submitted for the Degree of Doctor in Philosophy in Government Department of Government University of Essex July 2014 iii Contents Abstract.........................................................................................................................vii Abbreviations.................................................................................................................ix A note on parliamentary proceedings..........................................................................xi Acknowledgments........................................................................................................xiii Introduction....................................................................................................................1 The case of Greek racism......................................................................................................8 Racism, rhetoric and frontiers.............................................................................................16 Greek racism and other racisms: research design...............................................................28 Chapter overview................................................................................................................33 1 The Myth of Homogeneity and the ©Present© of Immigration.................................37 Erasing historical minorities...............................................................................................39 The ambiguous status of ©internal others©............................................................................41 ©Unforeseen immigration© or the 1990s ©turn©......................................................................46 Immigrant labor...................................................................................................................52 Immigration: problem or opportunity?...............................................................................56 The anthropological/discursive perspective.......................................................................62 Racism in the spotlight........................................................................................................65 Conclusion...........................................................................................................................69 2 Security, Migration and Race...................................................................................71 Security studies and Migration...........................................................................................72 The silencing of racism.......................................................................................................83 Foucault, race wars, history................................................................................................89 Postcolonial security-migration and race............................................................................94 Racism as a ©problem© ± the case of social psychology......................................................96 The discursive ©turn©..........................................................................................................102 Theoretical and Practical Resonances..............................................................................107 Psychoanalysis and Racism..............................................................................................111 3 Hospitality and Racism as Ideological Objects......................................................118 Racism, Hospitality and Myth..........................................................................................119 Essentialism......................................................................................................................126 The logic of fantasy..........................................................................................................136 iv Fantasy, rhetoric, ideology................................................................................................139 Methodological notes and the archive..............................................................................142 4 Emerging Problems, New Imaginaries...................................................................152 The 1980s and the national reconciliation........................................................................153 The ©descent of the myriad refugees©.................................................................................157 The ©demographic problem©...............................................................................................165 The ambiguity of a signifier: racism.................................................................................167 Becoming racist?...............................................................................................................169 Racism as ©pure heterogeneity©..........................................................................................173 Mythology.........................................................................................................................178 Conclusion........................................................................................................................184 5 ©Chaos on Greek Islands©: the Emergence and Contestation of Administrative Detention of ©Aliens©...................................................................................................186 The EU context of ©justification© of administrative detention...........................................188 The position of the practice of detention and the question of ©exceptionalism©...............191 The terra incognita of administrative detention in Greece...............................................200 Pagane...............................................................................................................................204 The period of mobilization: hunger strikes, No Border camp and the international ©other© ...........................................................................................................................................209 Before the aftermath: ©Crowded migrant detention centre on the Greek island of Lesvos© ...........................................................................................................................................215 Conclusion........................................................................................................................219 6 From Territorial ©Margins© to the ©Centre© of the Nation: immigration, urban ©decay© and racism......................................................................................................222 The Re-birth of ©Vigilantes©...............................................................................................227 The ©new© discourse...........................................................................................................236 Babel or diversity?............................................................................................................247 Fantasmatic logics: racism and filoxenia as ©culture©........................................................252 Conclusion........................................................................................................................254 7 Security, Citizenship and the Right to have Rights: The "Law School of Athensº Controversy in 2011....................................................................................................256 A Serious Threat...............................................................................................................257 In search of hospitality......................................................................................................264 The battlefield of the law..................................................................................................269 ©Public© opinion and the ©open-gov© initiative....................................................................279 v Conclusion...................................................................................................................286 Appendix.....................................................................................................................298 Works Cited................................................................................................................327 vi vii Abstract This thesis examines the dominant responses to and struggles around immigration in contemporary political discourse in Greece. While immigration in Greece has received considerable scholarly and public attention, the question of racism has either been ignored or framed in problematic ways. This thesis argues that the question of racism should play a central role in accounting for these problematizations of immigration. Drawing on Poststructuralist theory and Psychoanalysis it is argued that the potency of racism in Greek political discourse emerges from its disavowed character as well as from the ways it is specifically inflected in appeals to Greece©s self-understanding as a hospitable nation. Following how racism as a signifier figures (or is absent) in discourses around immigration and security, this thesis discloses the political and ideological operations at work whose critical explanation is articulated around the development of social, political and fantasmatic logics