European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100 brill.com/emil Migrating from Pakistan to Greece: Re-visiting Agency in Times of Crisis Michaela Maroufof* Hara Kouki ELIAMEP, Hellenic Foundation for European & Foreign Policy, Vassilisis Sofias 49, Athens 10676, Greece *Corresponding author, e-mail: [email protected] Abstract This paper focuses on migration from Pakistan to Greece in an attempt to uncover the dynamics of the regulation of irregular migration (and asylum-seeking) in Greece. It examines the factors, policies, and actors that influence the plans, actions, and deci- sions Pakistanis make before leaving their country and when arriving in Greece. After setting the background against which Pakistanis enter and settle in the country, we trace these migrants’ decision-making process throughout their movement based on a series of qualitative interviews. While a variety of actors and factors are at play in the way people move from the one country to the other, masculinity emerges as the framework within which these come together. Keywords Greece – irregular migration – migration – Pakistan 1 Introduction From mid-2015 onwards, Europe saw a massive increase in migrant and refu- gee flows from the Middle East and Africa that challenged the ways both aca- demic experts and political actors had dealt with migration. Words such as “borders” or “irregularity” were suddenly irrelevant in the face of the huge wave of people risking their lives as they crossed the Mediterranean Sea in search of a better future on a continent that was itself in acute crisis. The main countries © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/�57�8�66-��34���Downloaded6 from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 78 Maroufof and Kouki for migrant arrivals were on the European Union’s south, largely because they form the EU’s external borders but also due to the inadequate policy responses and labour market structures prevalent in these countries (Triandafyllidou and Maroufof, 2008; Baldwin-Edwards, 2008). At the same time, countries on the EU’s periphery are suffering the most severe recession experienced in post- war Europe which has resulted in the pauperization of large segments of their populations (Eurostat 2012). So what drives people to embark upon a journey that is irregular and unsafe? Migration must be understood as a complex social process that is also shaped by the agency of the migrants. Faced with conflicts and violence back home and control policies and hazards in the destination countries, to what extent do those individuals control their own decisions and destinies? This paper forms part of a broader project that attempts to uncover the dy- namics of the governance of irregular migration and asylum seeking in Greece as well as the ways in which different actors and factors affect the nature and direction of the flows within an overall restrictive EU and national (Greek) migration policy regime. The focus is not on the state’s policies, which have already been addressed by much of the existing literature, but on the migrants themselves as central actors in this journey. In tackling this less-examined as- pect, the underlying question posed is how people make sense of their own needs and wishes and how they conceptualize their (legal or irregular) mobil- ity. Within this broader context, this paper focuses on migration from Pakistan to Greece and seeks to identify those factors, policies, and actors influencing Pakistani migrants’ plans, actions, and decisions before leaving their country and when arriving to Greece. With regards to Pakistan, migration as a process is inherently intertwined with its past and present. Approximately four million Pakistanis live outside their country, half in Europe. At the same time, Pakistan has been not only the origin, but also the transit destination of multiple migratory flows. With over 1.6 million people from Afghanistan, the country hosts one of the world’s larg- est refugee populations. This socially-embedded experience of mobility, both within and outside the country’s borders, to a great extent has defined both the composition of Pakistan’s population and how the national culture has been shaped and understood since its establishment (1947). The evolution of migra- tion from Pakistan to European countries over the last decades is paradigmatic in terms of contemporary migration in general: in the early 1950s, large groups of young Pakistani men from peasant communities moved to the UK to work in the construction sector, while in subsequent decades educated middle class Pakistanis moved to the UK, Norway and Denmark. This first phase of legal immigration to Europe, which led to the permanent establishment of rather European Journal of MigrationDownloaded and Law from 19 Brill.com09/30/2021 (2017) 77–100 05:21:27PM via free access Migrating From Pakistan To Greece 79 homogeneous migrant communities in the countries of destination, was fol- lowed by an irregular stage of migratory movement that started in the early 1990s. This shift was produced by a combination of factors concerning move- ment in the Middle East and Europe, and concerned the migration of the groups in greatest poverty through smuggling networks (Youssef, 2013). In recent years Greece has become a critical pathway for migratory flows to Europe, predominantly involving irregular movements. This is due to its geo- graphic position as well as inadequate policy responses and the existence of large informal labour sectors. In the early 1990s, those movements involved mostly populations from neighbouring Balkan countries, while in the second half of the 2000s the country has witnessed flows transcending both its mari- time borders and its eastern land borders with Turkey. Violence and conflicts in the Middle East as well as wider areas of Africa and Asia have swelled both the migrant and asylum-seeking flows towards Europe in general, and to- wards Greece in particular, in the last five years (Triandafyllidou, 2015). During those years, Greece became the first developed nation to be downgraded to an emerging economy (MSCI, 2013). Austerity measures have had detrimen- tal consequences for Greeks’ daily lives. Official unemployment rates have skyrocketed and a significant reduction in household incomes was accompa- nied by extremely poor quality and access to basic social services, while rising inequalities and social exclusion (see OECD, 2014) affect primarily deprived populations such as migrants and asylum seekers. This paper is based upon research conducted during 2013 and 2014 on un- documented Pakistani migrants in Greece. Focusing on individuals migrating irregularly from a country shaped by mobility to a country plagued by auster- ity, our aim is to explore how the agency of the migrant plays out under those specific structural conditions and restrictions and through interaction with in- termediate actors, such as employers, smugglers, or NGOs, as well as domestic policies and authorities that condition the migrant’s plans and actions. 2 Methodology Migration literature frequently approaches irregular migrants as objects or vic- tims of migration regimes. It has been criticized for equating migrants with workers, thus downplaying non-economic factors related to the decision to migrate (Anderson and Ruhs, 2010) and overemphasizing the centrality of the household and the importance of social networks in the decision to migrate (Ahmad, 2011). At the same time, and with regards to research on migration in Greece, the focus has been primarily on migratory flows from the Balkans European Journal of Migration and Law 19 (2017) 77–100Downloaded from Brill.com09/30/2021 05:21:27PM via free access 80 Maroufof and Kouki while overlooking movements from Asia and Africa (Dermentzopoulos et al., 2009). Pakistani migrants in Greece have rarely been the subject of studies,1 while their exclusively male presence in the country has been either over- looked or normalized. Irregular migrants are usually understood as uniform and genderless individuals motivated by rational arguments to improve their own or their family’s financial and material conditions (Ahmad, 2011), and re- search seems to ignore the complex subjectivity of the individuals deciding to face the risk of irregular migration. This report is an attempt to respond to the above gaps in migration liter- ature that account for the relationship between social structure and human agency (Hatziprokopiou and Triandafyllidou, 2013: 20). Migration, in the con- text of this report, is understood as a positive choice and not a product of forced imposition (Koser, 2009). The focus is thus on the individual will and subjectivity of the migrant. Departing from Sen (as quoted in Ahmad, 2011: 25), agency refers to the ability of the individual to choose, act and bring about change in a way defined by his or her own aspirations, needs, and values within a specific sociocultural context. Structural limitations, migration control poli- cies, and calculations over well-being, therefore, are not the most important or even sole factors at play: decision-making is enacted as a process and a prod- uct of the interplay between individual identities, experiences, and drives in relation to social networks, households, local traditions, and cultural practices. Moreover, in the case of young male Pakistanis who decide to risk their lives to migrate to Greece, masculinity emerges as the predominant dynamic that structures irregular migration. Although knowledge on gender aspects defining migration