Refugee life at Europe’s borders : abandon, survival and retaking control in Idomeni, Greece

(1)

Refugee Life at Europe’s Borders

Abandon, Survival and Retaking Control in Idomeni, Greece

Sarah Boers-Goi

University of Amsterdam

24

th

of June 2016

Graduate School of Social Sciences

Master thesis Political Science

Supervisor: Dr. Polly Pallister-Wilkins

Conflict Resolution and Governance Second reader: Dr. Darshan Vigneswaran

(2)

Summary

Current European border politics are not without consequence for refugees and other non-European migrants who find themselves stuck in border camps. Unable to access their

international right to protection or to move on, they are made to navigate confusing (non)status in precarious living conditions. This thesis, by taking Idomeni refugee camp as a

case study, aims to not only uncover the way in which unwanted populations are currently (not) being dealt with, but also to examine the ways in which refugees experience the precarious and unclear situation they are faced with at the Greek-Macedonian border. By bringing my fieldwork data to the fore, the ethnographic part of my thesis will show how people handle the confusion and precarity of refugee life on the ground. Examples of coping mechanisms and strategies, reflections on Europe, as well as other aspects of camp life will be

discussed. Overall, I conclude that the mis- and non-management of refugees at the border is done with disregard to refugees' needs, ignores international law, leads to mistrust and resentment towards Europe, and that the massive gap between 'the people' and 'the system' leaves many desperately feeling that they have no other way to retake control of their lives and to 'overcome the border' than by using illegal and dangerous routes. Furthermore, a consideration of the long-term implications of border politics and their consequences will lead

me to conclude that border camps are the ‘ante-chambers to European apartheid’, or merely the constitutive beginning of future difficulties surrounding integration and feelings of

belonging in host countries.

Key words:

Refugees, borders, border camps, Europe, migration, securitisation

(3)

I. Introduction

1.1 Introduction to Topic

The current influx of refugees into the European Union is perhaps one of the most discussed topics in today’s European societies. Subject of daily debate, refugees are making headline after headline; adamantly rejected by some, frantically welcomed by others, ‘dealt with’ by policy makers and practitioners, and constantly problematised and operationalised by

politicians. If we are to believe media, politicians and concerned citizens, refugees should be understood and referred to as bringers of a 'crisis'. The contents of this 'crisis' can be filled in at will depending on the point one wants to make, but the most commonly voiced concerns are over the perceived influence that refugees will have on states’ welfare systems, local cultures and practices, public safety, and even over the possible connection between ‘irregular migration’ and international terrorism. Humanitarian groups, in contrast, refer to a ‘crisis’ in terms of breaches of international refugee law and the immoral implications of current EU border policies.

Europe’s history with and relation to borders, walls and fences is painful and controversial to say the least. Although internal border fences are often referred to as

‘something of the past’, reminiscent of an era when Europe was divided by the Iron Curtain, it is the external borders of Europe (in other words, the Mediterranean sea) that are now

becoming increasingly fortified and securitized - giving way to a new conceptualisation of the continent as ‘Fortress Europe’. To the people being kept out of Europe, this has translated into the proliferation of a booming human smuggling system which enables individuals to cross the Mediterranean sea in unseaworthy boats for thousands of euros (or, for several thousand euros more, in slightly less unseaworthy boats).

Media have given a lot of attention to these ‘boat trips’, dramatically representative as they are of a rite of passage marking the transition from non-Europe into Europe. However, the fetishized images of ‘illegal immigration’ and the sensationalist focus on the boats and their passengers that ‘reach the European shores’ (or die trying) overshadow everything that happens afterwards, during the remaining process of this type of migration. Although for some the journey to Europe is indeed dramatic and coupled with fatal consequences, for others it merely indicates the beginning of months stuck at borders, frustrating and exhausting journeys through Europe, and equally frustrating asylum procedures.

Due to an unbalanced distribution of asylum applications per European country and to the geographical positions of some countries on migration routes to the most popular

countries, Greece and other countries along the Balkan Route found themselves having to deal with more people passing through their countries than they could (or wanted to) handle

(Kingsley 2016). Due to the incapability (or unwillingness) of these countries to manage the influx of refugees, several states started closing their borders to refugees. As a result,

approximately fifty to sixty thousand refugees who were planning to travel north have now literally been ‘caged in’ by the borders surrounding Greece. The fact that these refugees are unable to leave the country has resulted in the creation of several dozen (if not hundreds of) informal refugee camps throughout Greece, a country currently lacking the resources, structures and EU-support to manage the situation.

Idomeni, initially a transit point along the Balkan route near the Greek-Macedonian border, became the largest and one of the most discussed refugee camps in Greece after the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia restricted number of entries and then closed its borders completely in March 2016 (Nenov 2016). The creation of Idomeni, where the fieldwork for this thesis was carried out, is in itself a direct result of the failure to adequately

(6)

‘manage’ the influx of refugees into Europe - and, as I will show in this thesis, it is their subsequent mis- and non-management that continuously reproduces and perpetuates a problematic situation for those involved.

In short - the notion of a refugee crisis, the consequent proliferation of Europe's external and internal borders and the unsuccessful management of migration flows has, among other things, led to the creation of improvised border camps such as Idomeni, Greece along the main entry and transit points of Europe. A general failure to address the migration flow of refugees and other non-European migrants into Europe has strongly impacted the journeys of those who, forced to flee war, poverty and conflict elsewhere, try to make their way into 'Fortress Europe'. Having now broadly introduced the topic of this thesis, I shall turn to its objective and relevance.

1.2 Objective and Relevance of Research

In this paragraph, I shall bring to the fore the objective of this research and formulate its research questions. In order to show the relevance of this research and its findings, I shall argue that it fills a literature gap by addressing the underrepresented voices and concerns of refugees vis-a-vis a ‘crisis’ which, although supposedly concerns them, constantly excludes them from the debate around it.

When considering the attention given to the ‘refugee crisis’ as explained above, one group’s voice is awkwardly absent from a societal obsession with refugees in which a lot of talking is done about refugees and very little with refugees. The exclusion of refugees’ and other non-Western migrants’ voices does not merely occur in the domains of politics, public debate and media, but also in the field of academics. While a large and growing body of work exists on Europe's border politics and migration, not much has been written about the emic perspective of those who are on the move and the consequences that European border politics might have for them. According to Palladino and Gjergji (2016, p. 2), this “sustained lack of engagement with migrants’ life experiences has reproduced disempowering paradigms in top-down research practices”.

The aim of this thesis is to help fill this gap by allowing the underrepresented voices of refugees themselves to become a part of the debate about their fate. The central question of this research is, therefore, "How do refugees in the border camp of Idomeni, Greece

experience the way they are being ´mis- and non-managed´?" By conducting fieldwork at the

border camp of Idomeni, Greece, and following respondents over a certain period of time, I aim to report the ideas and thoughts that refugees themselves have about their frustrations and expectations. I shall look at the influences of border politics on the way in which they

understand themselves and Europe, on their mental state, but also on their further lives as new inhabitants of Europe. Moreover, I will try to uncover some of the ways in which the people ‘stuck at the border’ try to retake control over their lives.

This research taps into greater questions of how states, international organisations and coalitions of states deal with populations they (explicitly or implicitly) classify as a burden, and questions about the relationship between the state and its non-citizens. One of the main lines of thought running through this thesis, based on the work of James Scott (1998), is that large-scale schemes to control and manage people (and flows of migrating people) tend to oversimplify complex social realities, excluding the perspectives of people they are ‘managing’, and thereby failing to improve the human condition (ibid.).

In short - the relevance of this thesis is based on the observation that despite the constant attention given to refugees in media and public discourse, the perspectives of

(7)

refugees on their lives at Europe's borders are generally underrepresented. The objective of this thesis is to study and include these perspectives, assuming that this will allow for some insights into the current situation vis-a-vis refugees in Europe/Greece. Before turning to a review of relevant literature and theory in chapter two, I shall now shortly outline my thesis.

1.3 Thesis Outline

In the first chapter of this thesis, I have given a broad introduction of the topic and discussed the objective of this research. In the second chapter, I shall bring to the fore the theoretical framework by reviewing relevant literature on border(camp)s, the securitisation of migration and refugees, and introduce the concept of borderscapes. This theoretical overview will serve as the analytical framework in which the findings of my fieldwork are to be understood. After discussing the methodology used for this fieldwork in chapter three, I shall present the

findings of my research in chapter four. In order to answer my research question, I shall first look at how refugees are currently being ‘dealt with’ by the Greek State, the European Union, the UNHCR, and solidarity movements. I shall conclude that refugees have to a certain extent been ‘abandoned’ - leading to a situation on the ground that legitimises the Greek state’s response of transferring refugees into military camps. Then, I shall show how being the ‘mis- and non-managed’ population resulted in a total lack of information, a mistrust in official programs and reluctance to cooperate (leading to increase in human smuggling) and,

disillusionment vis-a-vis Europe. Then, looking at how people reclaim agency and control in a situation that takes control away, I show how this is done through informal economy,

protesting, and (again) human smuggling.

The overall conclusion of this thesis is that current policies concerning the

management of refugees and their rights has failed to achieve satisfactory results, leading to several negative consequences. Moreover, considering the experiences and frustrations of refugees is not to be overlooked as their experiences shape the kind of societal group they will become. The structures that are now set up to create frustrated second-rank semi-citizens should be changed into a system whereby each person in Europe can fulfill their human needs, regardless of whether they are actually from Europe, both for the benefits of the refugees and for the benefit of the host countries.

(8)

II. Literature Review and Theoretical Framework

In this chapter, I shall discuss the relevant literature on border(camp)s and securitisation in order to draw a picture of the relevant debates around these issues. Then, following the literature on borderscapes, I will deconstruct the concept of borders as mere instrumental tools to limit people’s mobility, and argue that they are also to be understood as spaces for contestation and the realisation of agency. This chapter will help to make sense of the findings that will be discussed in subsequent chapters.

2.1 Literature on Borders

The border is one of the primary concepts defining the modern nation state. If we want to make sense of what is happening ‘at the border’, and specifically at the border camp of Idomeni, Greece, we first need to come to an understanding of what a border is. Creating this understanding is the aim of this section, in which I look at the political logic of borders, how this leads to ‘illegal entry’ as the only way to access Europe, and the way in which borders also exist beyond the physical form of the border fence or crossing.

The concept of ‘borders’ has seen a remarkable upsurge of academic interest since the early 1990’s, a development which is to be understood in the context of rapidly increasing global interdependence and dramatic shifts of political borders both inside and outside Europe (Driessen 2002, p. 31). One of the earliest anthropologists to call attention to borders argued that “all of us inhabit an interdependent world marked by borrowing and lending across porous national and cultural boundaries that are saturated with inequality, power, and domination” (Rosaldo, cited in Driessen 2002, p. 31). Although borders might be peripheral by definition, they are simultaneously central points of interest as they are the material representatives of wider political forces, and carry in them these political forces’ logics of territorialisation and exclusion by filtering, disciplining, and dominating. By restricting certain groups’ capability for mobility, a mobility which states often find threatening, borders tame and dominate (Pallister-Wilkings 2015a). Borders change, have changed constantly over the last centuries, are legitimized by the transcendent ideas of changing national or

supranational sovereignties; or for example, by the authority of the ‘European Union’ (Driessen 2002, p.33).

As borders are spatial representations of underlying structures of power, they are also central to questions of citizenship and political association (Balibar 2009, p. 190). In more abstract terms, a border is not only a ‘thing’ (like a wall or a fence), but also the symbolised realisation of authority (Maurits 2015, p. 513). In this way, border controls are more and more targeted at specific groups that the state or area wants to ‘protect itself’ from (Palladino 2016, p. 9). Borders “inhabit the realm of crisis and emergency” (Agamben 1995, p. 115), and symbolise a distinction between “the places that are safe and unsafe, to distinguish us from them. A border is a dividing line. The forbidden are its inhabitants” (Anzaldua, cited in Palladino 2016, p. 9).

With the reinforcement of Europe’s external frontiers, refugees and other non-European migrants have to make their way ‘illegally’ across the Mediterranean sea. It is important to remember, when considering this type of migration, that the life-threatening dangers of crossing the Mediterranean sea by plastic boat or of crossing borders by foot illegally are dangers that exist only because “European border policies restricting safe and legal routes leave few alternatives other than unsafe and irregular forms of transport for those fleeing conflict and poverty” (Jeandesboz & Pallister-Wilkins 2016, p. 1). Border policies creating illegal entry as the only option into Europe is a system which (despite being designed by the EU) many European citizens have come to see as normal and self-evident. What it

(9)

does, however, is push refugees and other migrants into the margins of their new societies from the onset on, even before subjecting them to prolonged rites of passage into citizenship through integration mechanisms often reminiscent of ancient attempts to civilise:

“The externalisation of European borders directly affects migrants’ lives as they are, from the very onset of their journeys, caught in a permanent borderland existence. […] Migrants are indeed a forbidden and alien presence in Fortress Europe, where borders are [...] no longer the shores of politics, but the space of the political itself” (Balibar 1998, p. 220).

This statement implies that while remarkable attention is given to both external and inter-state borders, these are not the only borders in place. Although the imagery of boats arriving on European shores (external borders) and of people climbing over fences (internal borders) are obviously shocking, the experience of a ‘border’ is extended to each subsequent movement in which people are constructed and dealt with as ‘illegal migrants’ or ‘refugees’. For Fassin (2011), a differentiation can be made here between borders and boundaries, the former referring to external territorial frontiers and the latter as internal social categorisations. For example - not being allowed to work, not having the right to move to another country than the one where one has asylum, having to wait months for bureaucratic mechanisms being

constantly referred to as a refugee, a problem, or a profiteer - all these things are in fact

boundaries.

“The granting of work permits, residency permits and providing access to welfare provisions and social assistance are undoubtedly more important instruments for controlling [than external border control], improving or limiting the free movement of people” (Huysmans 2000, p. 759).

Contemporary EU border policy, then, is not limited to the physical crossing of external territorial borders but extends to subsequent boundaries and the ‘process as a whole’: the

border is not just a sea or a territorial crossing - it is not getting the same rights and treatment

as national EU citizens.

When considering the concept of borders, one can conclude that they are indeed 'saturated with inequality, power, and domination' (Rosaldo, cited in Driessen 2002, p.31). Europe's growing preoccupation with its external borders are the most obvious borders in this respect, but the experience of a border extends to the whole refugee existence in 'Europe as a borderland' (Balibar 2009). Moreover, borders are realisations of authority targeted at specific groups - a (visible or invisible) dividing line between 'us' and 'them'. It is to the construction of this ‘them’ that the European borders are trying to keep out that I shall now turn.

2.2 Literature on Securitization of Immigration & Refugees

In this section, I shall discuss the securitisation of migration and refugees, as this shows how official narratives surrounding migration and their underlying assumptions are used to

‘justify’ current border politics. I shall show how individuals seeking international protection or better lives in Europe are framed as a threat to European societies and how this relates to borders and bordering politics.

Over the last few decades, migration has increasingly been constructed politically as a security issue, whereby immigrants and asylum-seekers are portrayed as challenges to

national identity, welfare provisions, employment and public security. Politicians often present refugees as bringers of a ‘crisis’, an acute problem, and a serious burden imposed on European societies. This “reifies migration as a force which endangers the good life in west

(10)

European societies” (Huysmans 2000, p. 753) that now have to either ‘resist’, or ‘cope with’, the presence of these ‘outsiders’ and ‘aliens’.

The discourses and practices of securitization are constitutive of the way people come to think about a situation - Frontex missions and European politicians constantly talking in terms of a ‘refugee crisis’, ‘the fight against irregular migration’ and ‘invasions’, ‘waves, ‘floods’ or even ‘tsunamis’ of migrants act as ways for European citizens to increasingly internalise refugees as a security problem (Andersson 2014) and “migration, on the basis of the distribution and administration of fear, becomes a security policy” (Huysmans 2006, p. 1). Italian interior minister Pisanu referred to migratory movements from outside the continent as “an assault on our coasts” (Palladino 2016, p. 4), almost conjuring visions of Europe needing to take up arms in combat.

Europe, when seen as a borderland which distinguishes so harshly between Europeans and non-Europeans, as such constructs an international biopolitical order whereby the

intersection of European identity and politics come together to exclude the Other. Within this world order,

“Migrants form an indistinct category, the undesirable, superfluous ‘human waste’. […] Political and public rhetoric portrays migrants as endangering European health, security, identity and welfare - as an inhuman presence gathering at the southern frontier of Fortress Europe” (Bauman 2004, p. 18).

As pointed out in the previous section, putting walls, fences, and security systems around Europe does not merely serve to 'regulate immigration' in a practical sense. Constantly emphasizing Europe’s borders paves the way for a focus on the idea that people on the other side of these borders can best be understood through their non-Europeanness as a main characteristic. The term ‘refugee’ in itself allows for a European gaze towards those who constitute a different category of people. As a consequence, they are seen as outsiders that threaten the ‘homogeneity’ of European states and societies and their presence should therefore be seen as unwanted (Voutira 2013, 63).

“The explicit privileging of nationals of [EU] Member States in contrast to third-country nationals and the generally restrictive regulation of migration sustains a wider process of delegitimizing the presence of immigrants, asylum-seekers and refugees. EU policies support, often indirectly, expressions of welfare chauvinism and the idea of cultural homogeneity as a stabilizing factor” (Huysmans 2000, p. 753).

The problem with this categorisation of the Other as a security problem is that it is coupled with an inherent hierarchical structure. In this structure, ‘refugees’ are automatically linked to having less rights than Europeans (because they are less entitled to them), they are ‘unwanted’ and possibly dangerous as they had to come ‘illegally’, and they should somehow be thankful to be ‘welcomed’ into European societies where they are expected to ‘behave’ and

‘contribute’. These ideas originate from (and reproduce) the alleged connections made in politics and media between immigration, security, threats and other problems, concurring with Bigo’s argument that each practice of security creates more insecurity and fear of other

groups (Bigo 2008; Balzacq 2010).

Related to this construction of negative connotations to the human categories of ‘refugee’, ‘asylum-seeker’ and ‘migrant’ is the way in which these terms are often coupled with ‘illegality’. To use the term ‘illegal immigrant’ is, according to Andersson (2014, p. 17) “pejorative, stigmatizing, and even incorrect, implying as it does that migrants are criminals”. While ‘illegal’ usually refers to actions rather than persons (as one would say that theft or

(11)

murder are illegal, it would be uncommon to talk about an ‘illegal thief’ or and ‘illegal murderer’, somehow the criminalisation of lack of documents is more used as intrinsically connected to the person. If someone has illegally crossed a border, perhaps due to the connection between borders and identity, their whole persona somehow is seen as illegal, a term that “remains insidious when used to label people rather than actions” (Andersson 2014, 17).

Some argue that the EU’s regulation of inclusion and exclusion of migrants is on the one hand led by, and on the other serves to develop Euro-racism (Huysmans 2000, p. 764). Whether the exclusion of ‘unwanted populations’ leads to Euro-racism or is a consequence of it (or both), ‘emphasising restrictions and control implies a negative portrayal of groups of migrants’ (Huysmans 2000, p.764). As I shall point out later on, refugees in Idomeni often referred to such ‘Euro-racism’ as the probable reason as to why they were treated in an unjust way and denied entry into Europe.

When considering refugee rights, it is interesting to note how rarely it is mentioned that taking in refugees is not so much an act of kindness but falls under international law and conventions. However, although any person officially has the right to apply for asylum in Europe (Geneva Convention and Commentaries n.d.), it is due to current Europe’s border policies that most lack any legal possibility to actually enter European territory: “Currently, in Western countries, access to international protection has been made dependant not on the refugee’s need for protection but on his or her own ability to enter clandestinely the territory” (Lax 2008, p. 317). Within this structure,

“... asylum-seekers and refugees are framed as a security problem which is different from an approach by means of a policy which emphasizes that asylum is a human rights question and/or which proposes human rights instruments to deal with the issue” (Huysmans 2000, p. 757).

To summarise - migration is increasingly constructed, understood and dealt with as a security issue in which the presence of immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers is portrayed as a challenge to European societies. Portraying migration as a ‘threat’ or a 'crisis' legitimises the use of border control to 'manage' influxes of people, but at the same time enforces the

conception of refugees as unwanted, potentially dangerous and burdensome. Having now discussed the themes of securitisation and borders, our understanding of border camps (such as Idomeni) needs to be nuanced by incorporating the concept of the borderscape.

2.3 Borderscapes

In this section, I shall focus on the concept of borderscapes - a concept which is fundamental in understanding the interrelatedness and dynamics of the different facets of refugee life at the border.

Following a basic understanding of borders, we come to see them as instrumental devices that can filter who is a welcomed (or at least accepted) guest in a community, and who ought to be ‘kept out’. In this sense, borders accept the mobility of some while blocking that of others, creating an inherently hierarchic understanding of humans in general. In addition to this definition, the concept of borderscapes allows for a more complex (and therefore closer to social reality) understanding of what ‘happens at the border’. More than being a mere line on a map, a borderscape is

“a contested ground in which the excluded (in this case migrants and refugees) always possess the power to act, and struggle, finding agency in their excluded statues, and reproducing the

(12)

border […] in their own image. Thus the notion of the border as a static and immutable barrier is rendered flexible, discursive, variegated and subject to constant transformation through the multiple discourses, practices and contests of a multitude of actors, ranging from state bureaucrats, international institutions, and border control operatives, to economic migrants, refugees, and smugglers” (Addison 2008, p. 415).

A borderscape, then, is a contested space where a conflict takes place between the person on the move, understanding him/herself as an international body and citizen of the world who should be allowed passage based on refugee law or the desire or need to migrate, and between the sovereign state who disagrees that they should be allowed this passage. The borderscape, and consequently the border camp, is thus a place where this conflict takes place, is

articulated, and is constantly perpetuated by the simultaneous presence of both the border and of those wanting to defy the authority of the border.

Borders emphasize a difference between spaces, demarcating geopolitical territories and creating a bigger-than-natural distance between these spaces. But by considering the idea of a borderscape, we see that borders do not only define a limit or end in options, but can also be spaces for (the search for) new beginnings. Borderscapes are areas where possibilities can be thought of, mediated and realised, where ‘being someone’ makes place for ‘becoming someone new’. Therefore, the concept of borderscapes allows for a more multi-faceted trajectory in border theorizing by giving more saliency to migrant knowledge and agency.

Over time, difficult border crossing after difficult border crossing, the borders’ inherent conceptions of human hierarchy and the sense of being unwelcome can become internalised by refugees - at the same time, so can feelings of unfairness and resistance. It is during the realisation of, and in reaction to, being treated as an undesirable migrant, a ‘problem’, that the border also becomes a place for contesting and rejecting.

It is this aspect of the borderscape, that will come to the fore most prominently in my findings. As will become clear in subsequent chapters, the borderscape is a paradoxical zone of agency and resistance, where control over people’s lifes is first taken away by the presence of borders and then reclaimed in different ways, giving new meanings to frustrating statuses and positions.

2.4 Summary of Theoretical Framework

This section concludes the review of relevant literature, which I shall now briefly summarise. Borders are inherently saturated with the political power of the forces they symbolise, and serve to filter, tame, and dominate ‘unwanted populations’. Through border politics, a

biopolitical hierarchy is implied in which these unwanted populations come to be understood as having less ‘right to have rights’ than EU nationals. At the same time, non-European migrants and refugees are increasingly constructed, understood and dealt with as a security issue as the presence of immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers is portrayed as a challenge to European societies. Portraying migration as a 'crisis' in a way legitimises the use of border control to 'manage' it in certain ways. ‘Borderscapes’, as a concept, helps us to understand the vitality of, and at, the border, as it shows that borderscapes (as opposed to the more static conceptualisation of a border) is “a contested ground in which the excluded always possess the power to act, and struggle, finding agency in their excluded statuses, and reproducing the border […] in their own image” (Addison 2008, p. 415). Now, before turning to the findings of my fieldwork, I shall discuss the methodology used for it.

(13)

III. Methodology

In addition to literature study, the results of which have just been discussed, fieldwork was carried out in order to collect the data needed to understand refugees’ perspectives on their lives at the European border camp of Idomeni. In this chapter, I shall describe the

methodology used for this fieldwork, starting with the design and practical issues such as who my respondents were and how I collected data. Then, I shall reflect on those methods by pointing out the benefits of participant observation, and touch upon the subjects of ethics, generalisation and objectivity.

3.1 Research Design and Method

The fieldwork that was carried out in the context of this thesis can most accurately be described as anthropological participant observation. It took place between the 1st of April and the 1st of May 2016 in the improvised refugee camp of Idomeni, at the border between Greece and Macedonia, which at the time held around 10.000 people. The research design used for this fieldwork resembles that of a cross-sectional approach, which is a type of observational study that entails collecting information without manipulating the study

environment. By comparing and observing different groups or individuals at a single point in time, it studies (groups of) people who might differ in certain aspects but all share a certain common characteristic such as educational background, ethnicity, age, or socioeconomic status (Bryman 2008, p. 44). All my research subjects, despite their differences, were refugees stuck in Idomeni and thus shared their status as well as the locality of 'Europe as a Borderland' (Balibar 2009).

The defining characteristic of participant observation is the researcher’s participation in the actions of his or her respondents - meaning living with, and like, the group of people one wants to study. In my case, participant observation also meant eating cold tuna and stale bread every day, sleeping in an overcrowded train compartment, standing in food distribution lines for several hours a day, not being able to shower or change clothes, getting teargassed by the Macedonian army during the protests, trying to figure out the best (legal and illegal) ways ‘out’, only to get just as frustrated by the ‘system’ as everybody else in camp. This full immersion was the only way to break down the barriers that existed between the camp’s inhabitants and the volunteers and journalists that left to their hotels in the evening. At the same time, however, as much as I incorporated myself into the camp life, I was constantly aware that it was still possible for me do the one thing that nobody else could - ‘leave’.

Due to both language barriers and the demographics of the camp, all of my respondents were either (Arab) Syrian, Palestinian, Algerian, or Moroccan. Even though many Algerian and Moroccan nationals find it very difficult to obtain asylum in European countries, the respondents I met fled forced military service in dangerous regions and I will therefore refer to them as refugees rather than reproducing any other kind of label that I do not agree with.

As most people in the camp spoke little to no English, I was lucky enough to find a family with a French-speaking mother of five children very early on during my fieldwork. This family asked me to stay with them in the abandoned train compartment they were using. As such, they became my central point of reference in camp, and knowing this family made it easy to use ‘snowball sampling’ (Bryman 2008, p. 459) to find more informants. With the mother of this family as well as with Algerian and Moroccan respondents, I could speak French - with everybody else, either my own basic Arabic, their basic English, or help from others would generally be sufficient to understand each other. Whenever Arabic conversations

(14)

got too complicated to follow, the older children would translate for me in more simple ways, or their mother would translate. Being ‘taken in’ by a Syrian family also ensured a certain social protection, preventing problems that establishing contacts as a ‘young woman travelling alone’ could otherwise have entailed.

All of my interviews were informal and unstructured. Informal interviewing is a somewhat casual way of fostering ‘low pressure’ interactions with respondents by simply talking about the topic without having to schedule ‘interview times’, allowing them to speak more freely and openly as it will feel like a normal conversation. I then either wrote the contents of what was discussed in my field notes the same day or the day after, sometimes using my phone to make notes about what had been said. This informality is a very helpful technique to build rapport and is also an important part of participant observation as there is no interviewer/interviewee dichotomy, allowing the researcher to come closer to the

respondent’s way of understanding the world (Bryman 2008, p. 465).

By comparing the data that I obtained from participant observation to the static answers that were given to passing journalists, I can conclude that this method was highly rewarding. It did not bother people to discuss my research questions, as their situation was the primary topic of discussion regardless of me asking questions about it or not. I did, at times, include questions I had written before into conversations, such as “How has your trip been up till now?”, “What did you think Europe would be like before you came?” or “What are the things that bother you the most about your situation now?”. As a result of my methodology, the data I retrieved was purely qualitative.

In short, using cross-sectional anthropological fieldwork carried out in April 2016 allowed me to study and collect the stories and frustrations of refugees stuck in Idomeni, Greece. My respondents were Syrian, Palestinian, Algerian and Moroccan, and a basic

knowledge of Arabic and the help of translators enabled me to surpass language barriers. Data was collected through unstructured and informal interviews and by sharing the daily life of the inhabitants of the camp.

3.2 Methodological reflection

In this paragraph, I justify and reflect on my methodology as described above by pointing out the benefits of participant observation as well as the more problematic implications inherent to social science research such as ethical considerations, generalisation and objectivity.

The benefits of participant observation are many, as it allows for the possibility to collect data incessantly and in its most ‘real’ form. In contrast to the enscened characteristics of an interview (which is, in a sense, taking a step back from reality in order to reflect upon it) and of survey studies (which often fail to grasp the complexities of social life), participant observation allows the researcher to see and experience reality as close to the respondents' reality as possible. This type of research at the local level has many benefits: “It makes

institutional strategies an object of study and analysis; it is detached without being too distant; [and] it includes the whole network of humanitarian arrangements while requiring the

researcher’s personal presence within this order to be attentive to its details” (Agier 2010, p. 7). Some important information might be found in small jokes, seemingly casual exchanges, reactions to changing environments - things that could have been missed during an interview or survey. As stated by Agier, “It is from this attention to detail, to the grains of dust that jam the machinery, the recalcitrant words of individuals about the roles assigned to them, that the ethnologist can learn and transmit most” (ibid.).

However, some points should to be made concerning ethics. Firstly, being a non-refugee European student talking about non-refugees’ experiences, one could say that I am somewhat guilty of the ‘Europeans talking about and for refugees’ process I am at the same time criticising. However, while being aware of this, despite the ethical awkwardness I

(15)

propose that when looking at the larger picture, a voice through me is still better than no voice. Also, although my contribution is obviously modest, the more work is done on this subject the more chances there are for it being improved in the near future.

Furthermore, one could say that I am ‘using’ a group of people that is in a disadvantaged position for my own research, while the people I studied will not benefit from my presence or questions. As with the point made above, however, ‘using’ my respondents for this research can only be understood within the bigger picture of the importance I see in voicing the underrepresented concerns of refugees.

A common problem in social science research is the question of generalisation, or the extent to which the study of a certain group of refugees in Idomeni can say something about other refugees in Idomeni, or even about refugees in Europe in general. Some have argued in this respect that ‘the act of constituting undocumented migrants and “the migrant experience” as objects of study is a form of “epistemic violence”, reducing a wide array of people to an ethnographic gaze” (Genova, de cited in Andersson, 2014: 12). However, having spoken to around thirty respondents, some on a daily and in-depth basis and others more sporadically, as well as listening to the many stories of refugees I know who already travelled to Europe in the last (two) year(s), I can say that the points I address in my findings are points that came repeatedly regardless of respondent’s nationality, age, gender or level of education. Moreover, according to Bryman (2008, p. 392), it is “the quality of the theoretical inferences that are made out of qualitative data that is crucial to the assessment of generalisation”, rather than the amount of people spoken to.

Lastly, one could argue that attachment to one’s respondents (in other words, when ‘respondents’ become ‘friends’ and ‘acquaintances’) compromises the basis for value-free and objective research. However, the possibility of total objectivity in social sciences is one that, as has been argued by many before, is unfeasible and unrealistic (Bryman 2008, p.26). Becker (1967), for example, argued that it is impossible to carry out research that is completely unaffected by our personal sympathies. Furthermore, regardless of whether I am personally and politically ‘on my respondents’ side’ or not, I have even so to the best of my ability reported and analysed the stories and views that they have shared with me.

(16)

IV. Research Results

As stated by Said (1994, p. 393), “official narratives have the power to interdict, marginalize and criminalize alternative versions of the same history”. It is to these ‘alternative versions’ that I shall now turn. This chapter starts with a section which describes the precarious conditions in Idomeni, followed by three main sections which will deal with three different but interrelated issues. Firstly, I shall describe the abandon of refugees by the Greeks state, the European Union and the UNHCR and how this abandon created a situation which

legitimised transiting people from improvised into military camps. Secondly, I turn to the way in which refugees experience being on the ‘receiving end’ of the mis- and non-management I describe, and thirdly to the different ways in which control and agency was retaken by refugees over their situation. First, however, I shall ‘set the scene’ by describing some of the precarious conditions in the camp. This contextualisation is needed to understand the setting in which, and in reaction to which, people’s frustrations, griefs and coping strategies exist and emerge.

4.1 Setting the scene

In order to paint the picture of daily life in Idomeni, I shall start by describing some of the precarious living conditions in the camp. The omnipresent precarity as I shall describe

illustrates the extent to which a border camp can become a place of exception, where people’s ‘right to have rights’ (Arendt 1951, p. 294) are not as self-evident as outside these camps. They become places where, based on their statuses of ‘refugee camps’, regular standards are different, ‘substandard’ when compared to the rest of the country (or continent).

One of the most problematic aspects of the camp was the lack of hygiene and

sanitation. The camp, which at the time of fieldwork held around 10.000 people, only had ten very basic showers for men and ten for women, which were cleaned only once daily and therefore generally flooded and filled with mud. In order to keep clean, people depended on products such as baby towels distributed by volunteers. However, when a certain volunteer group would leave Idomeni or move on to the distribution of other products, people could suddenly be without baby towels for one or two weeks. To illustrate the arbitrariness of these distributions (which is unavoidable without central organisational organisms), the family I stayed with had a collection of twenty spare toothbrushes but no toothpaste, as no one had distributed any.

Several water points in the camp made it possible for men to wash their hair in the open air, which was impossible for the women - the large majority of which were veiled. A handful of people created improvised showers by hanging blankets in trees and attaching buckets of water to the branches. Due to a lack of water to wash clothes, people generally wore the same clothes day in day out - knowing that clothing distributions were more common than soap to wash clothes with, many would burn the clothes and blankets that had become too dirty - creating masses of thick grey smoke each night and causing respiratory problems throughout the camp.

A couple of hundred basic toilet cabins had been placed, however their doors could not be locked from the inside, they did not flush, had no light, and tissues, toilet paper or soap were not provided. Finding feces on the ground was a daily occurrence, and after a few days most people would get used to the dirt and treat this with a mix of frustration, humor and disgust. The weather circumstances - either very hot or raining - transformed the camp and insides of the tents from either very muddy and smelly to hot and extremely dusty. At all times, the camp was generally dirty and there were hardly any options for garbage disposal.

(17)

The food from distributions, carried out by independent volunteer organisations, also formed significant problems. Typically, a daily menu consisted of bread and a boiled egg, cold canned goods (mainly beans and tuna), and small portions of soup or pasta with simple sauce or some lentils. For all meals, people had to queue up for 30 minutes to an hour per portion. On a typical day, one could easily spend two to three hours (per person, not per family) waiting for food - and another hour or more of queuing if one was also after clothes or tissues. As the portions were less than sufficient for an adult, people would have to queue up several times. All in all, the meals provided were sufficient for survival but unhealthy - all food was generally prepared in a way to make as many portions as cheaply as possible - a lot of salt, oil, sugar, and no vegetables. The effects of such long-term malnutrition, coupled with the other psychological effects of living in camp, were among other thing constant fatigue, lack of energy, dizziness, apathy - problems usually untreated by the medical instances on the ground.

Idomeni camp, built around a small train station, consisted of a dozen very large tents (housing around a hundred people a tent), around fifty medium-sized tents (for around thirty people a tent) and thousands of small camping tents in which one to four people could sleep. Many tents were set up on or beside the train tracks, and it was common for children to fall between the tracks and the trains, resulting in anything from minor scratches to open wounds needing stitches and tetanus shots. The diseases that ran through the camp were numerous, but most common were gastroenteritis, respiratory diseases and persistent colds, along with outbreaks of scabies and lice (Medecins Sans Frontieres Greece 2016).

Another frustrating aspect of camp life was the boredom of not having anything to do, other than the tasks needed to survive. One group of volunteers had opened a small ‘school’ which in reality consisted of teaching small children songs and dance routines and keeping them busy. However, with the many child protection posters hanging in camp stating the high risk of refugee children being kidnapped, many parents were scared to leave their children out of their sights.

Underlying all these aspects of Idomeni camp life lied the deeply entrenched frustration of being ‘stuck’ and not having a perspective of the future - on top of already present war traumas.

Tensions due to the conditions in the camp, as well as to so many people living together in a small area, led to small fights on a daily basis. Furthermore, one suicide and one suicide attempt occurred during my stay in the camp - and just before I arrived two men had set themselves on fire in front of the UNHCR hangar.

To sum up, some of the main factors making the living situation in Idomeni precarious were substandard hygiene, overcrowding, inadequate sanitation, boredom, and diseases. These factors are some of the more concrete examples that show us that borders and border camps are oftentimes ‘places of exception’, where substandard conditions are the norm and the failure of state(s) and institutions to manage the ‘crisis’ they so often refer to becomes very concrete. Now, I shall turn to the different ways in which refugees were abandoned and how this perpetuated the precarious conditions instead of improving them.

4.2 From multi-faceted abandon to legitimised policing framework

In order to understand the larger structures that play a role here, I will now turn to how

refugees in Idomeni have effectively been abandoned by the Greek state, the European Union, the UNHCR, and to a lesser extent by solidarity movements. The use of the word ‘abandon’ is used here as it was also the term most used by refugees themselves. Considering how refugees in Idomeni (as in much of the rest of Greece) were ‘dealt with’ will show that non- and mis-management is the most accurate way to describe the current state of humanitarian

government in Greece. As will become clear from these findings, the institutions that set out to deal with the ‘crisis’, more than anything, enlarged a crisis not for themselves but for the

(18)

refugees. As such, escalation became so imminent that handling ‘the crisis’ with a shift to a policing-and-controlling structure ( in other words, transferring people to military camps) seemed more legitimate and ‘response-able’ - whilst at the same time maintaining a non-management vis-a-vis the improvement of asylum procedures.

4.2.1 Greek State

This paragraph discusses the way in which the Greek state, whether purposefully or due to incompetence, effectively abandoned refugees who were stuck in Greece at the time of fieldwork. As will become clear, while in theory refugees seem to have several options to apply for asylum, in reality the Greek asylum system obstructed access to it.

Officially, at the time of my fieldwork, the Greek authorities had set up an asylum application process through which refugees could register for asylum in Greece. They could then either choose to remain in Greece with their new asylum, or to use their Greek asylum as the first step for the only two other legal options. The first of these options is family

reunification, meaning relocation to a country where one has close family. The other option is

the relocation program, in which people are assigned randomly to participating countries to obtain asylum there (thereby cancelling the Greek asylum). Although the relocation program supposedly takes language skills, personal wishes and the like into consideration, the final result depends on luck and available ‘spots’ at the moment of application. For example, someone can just as easily end up with one’s relatives in Germany or completely alone in Roumania.

In reality, none of these options (Greek asylum, reunification or relocation) were feasible: Access to any of these three options was made near-impossible as they first required making an obligatory appointment with the asylum office through Skype. In itself, this system is highly problematic as it means that only individuals with access to a smartphone and a reliable internet connection can make an appointment with the asylum office, excluding a large part of the refugee population.

Even more problematic than this technical obstruction, as well as the fact that one could only call during one specific hour a day, was the fact that the asylum office did not accept any Skype contact requests and did not pick up when called. Every person in camp who I spoke to about this Skype system reported having tried between a few dozen and a few hundred times before giving up. Many reported having tried, after days or weeks of

unsuccessfully trying the Skype system, to travel to the asylum office in Thessaloniki for a direct appointment. Even when saying ‘I am fleeing war and want international protection’ or ‘I am Syrian and need asylum’, refugees were systematically sent away and told to use the Skype system. Certain vulnerable Syrians and Iraqis (i.e. sick or underage) were told they were eligible for a Fast-track procedure which would work within two weeks. However, in reality, this procedure relied on the same Skype-appointment system.

Considering what has been discussed above in relation to borders, we see that the Greek state thus uses bureaucracy and the known lack of access to modern technology that refugees might have as more subtle ways to create a border - and it is this larger

understanding of borders that needs to be remembered as existing parallel to the physical borders. Such invisible borders do not physically separate between people from a certain space, but rather people from their rights. Such borders, although never announcing

themselves as borders, are however just as difficult to ‘overcome’ as physical ones such as a border fence.

To summarise, while in theory the Greek state presented the possibility to apply for asylum, and participate in European relocation or reunification programs, in practice the

(19)

system they had set up did not seem designed to work (nor did it). I shall now turn to the abandon of refugees by the European Union.

4.2.2 European Union

One could reasonably argue that the Greek state was perhaps not in a position to be left with handling the influx of refugees it was facing due to its topographic position, as it had

bureaucratic and economic difficulties handling its own country, let alone a humanitarian crisis. The Greek state, however, was not the only party whose absence was felt in the field. This section shall very shortly discuss the felt absence of the European Union in Idomeni.

The influx of refugees is very much a European issue, as can be seen in the Europeanisation of migration policies and the externalisation of borders as a way to curb migration. The fact that so many have died at sea trying to reach Europe in order to realise better lives for themselves and their families, however, painfully clashes with the human rights credentials given to Western polities such as the EU, which was Nobel Peace Prize winner of 2012 (Andersson 2014, p.7).

Some upheaval was felt around the controversial EU-Turkey deal (Kingsley 2016b), which entailed ‘swapping’ refugees arriving in Greece for ones in Turkey. However, the vast majority of people in Idomeni had already arrived in Greece before this deal, and it therefore did not have any consequence for them. Moreover, as stated above, the ´relocation program´ which was meant to give more EU support to Greece existed on paper more than it did in reality: “EU states would have to help Greece, but so far their facilitation of existing schemes, such as the failed EU relocation scheme, has been minimal, which does not bode well for future collaboration” (ibid.).

Despite a lot of discussion about the ‘refugee crisis’, discussions wherein one

imagines European leaders discussing strategies and numbers, there was no EU representation anywhere in the camp, neither had there been any representation seen noticed prior to arriving in camp. The abandon by the European Union was strongly felt and resented by camp

inhabitants, and many asked themselves on a daily basis “Where is Angela Merkel? What are the leaders doing all day?” (RB 24/04/2016). Surprisingly, even small children could be aware, in their own ways, of the abandon they were faced with; as was illustrated by the lyrics of this little song a seven-year-old daughter had invented to sing us to sleep: ‘ Almania,

Almania, mnmut hon mnmut hon. Mama Merkel, Mama Merkel’ (GB 17/04/2016 ).

4.2.3 UNHCR

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) is the global international body responsible for refugee rights. In reality, however, their activities failed to mean much for refugees.

Almost everyone in Idomeni had the same sceptical reaction to the mention of the name ‘UNHCR’, and it was a common belief that going to them was a waste of time - “There is no point in going to the UNHCR” (EB 16/04/2016), “I went to them but they don’t want to help me, they sent me away” (EK 23/04/2016), “It’s a waste of time. I didn’t understand what they were telling me and they didn’t try to listen to my story” (SA 16/04/2016).

There was a lack of translators able to translate not only to and from Arabic, but also to and from English - as several of the staff spoke only Greek. Also, having visited the UNHCR on a regular basis to ask information about different cases, I noticed that they gave inconsistent advice, at times completely wrong or misleading, and different staff members often contradicted each other. At other times, they were outright impatient and sent people away. Even if I am sure that many of the staff members probably genuinely wanted to help, there must be something structurally wrong in the communication and distribution of this help

(20)

as all refugees I spoke to described the UNHCR with statements such as ‘They don’t want to help us’.

Oftentimes, the UNHCR would ‘outsource’ the distribution of tents to volunteers because this had to occur at night (when people arrived) or because they were ‘understaffed’. According to several volunteers who had been in Idomeni for several months, the UNHCR employees “always asks us [volunteers] to do the things they don’t know how to handle. They freak when they have to hand out tents. They’re useless. They make the UNHCR seem more like a logo to brand tents with than as someone [sic] actually doing anything’ (NA & NB, 21/06/2016).

It is Agier (2010, p. 211) who aptly assesses the role of the UNHCR in the refugee camps it ‘manages’ (such as Idomeni):

“Despite the praiseworthy efforts and words of certain commissioners and high officials of UN agencies, it is perfectly clear today that the Geneva convention of 1951 defining the rights of asylum and refugees no longer actually governs the policies of asylum and hospitality practiced by those Western governments that drafted and voted for it at the time of the Cold War. In the UN agencies, […] direct control of population movements prevails over the protection of the stateless. The UNHCR now scarcely proposes anything more than a

humanitarian supplement to this control, even if undertaking […] the management of refugee camps and emergency shelters’. This no longer has much to do with the universalistic [ …] mission that the UN entrusted it with in the wake of the Second World War” (Agier 2011, p. 211).

This ‘humanitarian supplement to control’ can be seen quite clearly in the cooperation between the UNHCR and the Greek state - while the military camps were organised by the Greek military, it was the UNHCR who organised and facilitated transport to the camps, registered families for transfer, and at time convinced families to go.

4.2.4 Solidarity movements

One thing that became very clear during my fieldwork in Idomeni was that if it had not been for the grassroots organisations, NGOs and groups of highly motivated volunteering

individuals (who had taken time from work and studying to contribute), the inhabitants of Idomeni would not have had clothes to wear nor would they have had nearly enough food to eat. The volunteers were the ones distributing tents to new arrivals, provided them with information about their legal and practical options (which should have been the task of the UNHCR), a massive warehouse full of donated clothes was coordinated and organised by only a handful of volunteers, and as pointed out before the UNHCR often asked volunteers for help in sorting matters out. When the Greek state imposed the Skype system which people couldn’t use because there was no internet, volunteers from an NGO (Telecom Sans

Frontieres) installed WiFi points in the camp. Over a hundred volunteers were present daily and coordinated by a highly motivated team of people who had a strong first-hand knowledge of what was actually needed and happening on the ground, simply because they were there.

Although the largest support in camp came from NGOs, grassroots groups and independent volunteer organisations or projects, whether it was clothing distribution, food distribution, information stands, tea distribution, hygiene packs and toothbrushes, the Greek police was increasingly draconian in keeping independent volunteers, as well as numerous journalists and photographers, away from the camp. Starting with lengthy passport control and vehicle checks, and later on implementing the rule that only people who were part of an official organisation, with a letter to prove it, could enter the camp. This forced abandonment by volunteers was not always successful, as people found ways to get around the police

(21)

controls which were somewhat sporadic. But had they succeeded in stopping all independent volunteers even for a few days, it would have meant sudden death for the camp: all food was provided by a group of a dozen volunteer groups - it would have meant only the official groups Save the Children (1 banana and 1 portion of rice milk per day for the children) and Praxis (an orange and small portion of rice or pasta for up to 3.000 people) would have had to feed the entire camp.

4.2.5 Crisis and the legitimization of moving people to military camps

As I have just shown, even though the non- and mismanagement I have described here is not an active ‘state strategy’ per se, it does show how states, but also interstate coalitions and international organisations can fail in managing people as their energy is apparently spent elsewhere.

This multiple abandon could not lead to anything other than total chaos ‘on the ground’. With lack of proper services and the total frustration of not having a way out, the situation in the camp could only be described as one of constant precarity, isolation, and despair. The longer the ‘Idomeni problem’ perpetuated and deteriorated, the more of a ‘thorn in the eye’ it became. There is no way to know whether this exacerbation of a ‘crisis’ on the ground was a result of a larger plan or of sheer incompetence, nor is it especially relevant to speculate on. Either way, the existence of such a problematic camp and its prominent presence in the media served the function of legitimising a ‘handling of the crisis’.

When there is no crisis, there can be no party who can show that they know how to handle one. The ‘Idomeni crisis’, with which I refer to the unsustainable conditions on the ground, therefore served to legitimise the Greek state’s next move - the transiting of

thousands of people from the ‘improvised’ camp of Idomeni into state-run military camps. As we recall from Scott earlier, moving people into camp-like structures where they can be made legible, registered and controlled is part of the tendency of states to sedentarise:

“Efforts at sedentarisation are the state´s attempt to make a society legible, to arrange the population in ways that simplify state functions … [taking] complex social

practices [and trying to make them] centrally recorded and monitored” (Scott 1998, p. 3).

The more legible populations can be made, the easier they are to organise and control. Operationalising the refugee population and moving them into camps is in fact what Scott describes as turning large groups of people into simplified sets of numbers that can be managed, thereby losing sight of the complexity and subjectivity of the population.

This shows the transformation of Idomeni from a border camp into a place of “crisis requiring particular responses [...] [from] ‘response-able’ actors” (Pallister-Wilkins 2016, p. 2). The semblance of a miserable human existence, in which border regimes have stripped certain individuals of their political and legal identities, is thus evoked strategically by media and political establishment - strategic, because policy makers use the images of ‘bare camp life’ as a ‘worst case scenario’ to compare their own solutions and plans to (Dines, Montagna & Ruggiero 2014).

In other words - by letting the situation on the ground get so bad, the necessity of evicting unofficial camps seems more reasonable - at least from the outside. For the people being moved around however, as we will see later on, this eviction was not communicated well and was therefore met with scepticism, distrust and panic.

(22)

4.3 Being the Undesired Population

In this section, I shall look at what it means to be treated as an unwanted population. To understand what it means to be managed as an unwanted population, we need to first consider the relationship between modern nation states and the people within. This will also show the relationship between what has just been discussed in the section above to how it is

experienced ‘on the ground’. As Scott (1998) argues,

“the state always seems to be the enemy of ´people on the move´… Many state activities aim at transforming the population, space, and nature under their jurisdiction into the closed systems that offer no surprises and that can best be observed and controlled” (Scott 1998, p. 82).

In other words, states try to bring about certain changes within the populations that fall under their authority. In order to enlarge their possibilities for control and manipulation, states will try to make complicated and chaotic situations more understandable (legible) and

manageable. To illustrate this process, Scott uses the example of artificially planned forests: utilitarian motivations lead states to replace natural ‘wild’ forests with ‘planned’ forests which are more organised (all trees are planted in lines) and optimised (only the ‘best’ trees are planted and less useful ones kept out), making the whole more neat, clear and easy to organise administratively. Likewise, the transfer of refugees from a camp which was completely

illegible and unpredictable into state-run military camps is to be seen as no more than a state attempt to transform something unmanageable into something manageable.

However, ‘seeing like a state’ and carrying out such simplifying and myopic approaches to handling (fragile) populations is doomed to be, in Scott’s words - a ‘full-fledged disaster’ (1998, p.3) for the people involved. Just as a fragily planned forest will die due to the lack of diversity and complexity that makes it strong, people should not be simplified and processed, stripping them from control and agency and without taking into consideration their functioning social reality. In the case of Idomeni, this holds true for the Greek state as well as for the European Union. The social realities they ignore will be the subject of this section.

Refugee camps, according to Agier, are “spaces that no longer merely serve to keep vulnerable refugees alive but to park and guard all kinds of undesirable populations” (Agier 2010, p. 3), and in doing so to consolidate a category of “the world’s residual ‘remnants’, dark, diseased and invisible” (ibid).

In the process of obtaining asylum, refugees are first illegalised by the only way they can reach the European continent, and then through the asylum procedure they are considered for semi-inclusion, which is really a subordinate inclusion. The border spectacle

systematically renders this ‘illegality’ effect to appear as “a quasi-intrinsic deficiency of the migrants themselves, who may thereby be presumptively deemed undeserving of citizenship, inherently lacking … capacity for self-determination and thus by implication their

incompetence for self-governance” (Genova, de 2013, p. 12).

“Whether ‘refugees’, ‘disaster victims’ are tolerated, or their negative alter egos ‘illegals’, ‘terrorists’, ‘stateless’, etc. - all these are external identitarian categories ascribed according to ‘technical’ criteria of assistance or control, i.e. policing or humanitarian criteria that have no need of the voice of the beneficiaries to confirm them (Agier 214-215).”

It seems appropriate to return to Scott's statement that ‘seeing like a state’ can be a ‘full-fledged disaster’ for the people involved. As soon as people are categorised and treated as ‘illegals’, ‘refugees’ and ‘problems’, the decisions taken for them had many problematic

Refugee life at Europe’s borders : abandon, survival and retaking control in Idomeni, Greece