“To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always” : an ethnographic story about the encounter between humanitarianism and border crossers in and around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos

(1)

1

“To cure sometimes, to relieve

often, to comfort always”

An ethnographic story about the encounter between humanitarianism and border crossers in and

around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos

Rozemijn Aalpoel, 11263067 Supervisor: Katerina Rozakou University of Amsterdam, GSSS department

Master thesis

Cultural and Social Anthropology

Applied Anthropology track 26th_{of June, 2017} Third and second reader: Laurens Bakker and Oskar Verkaaik

(2)

2 (Title: quote Edward Trudeau, cited in focus group with medical volunteers, March 2017)

(3)

3

Abstract

As deep as the sea, as tall as a fence and as blue as a bruise, that is, the production and embodiment of the border. The logistics of the border in and around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos are found in every-day practices, in the mundanities of bureaucracies, in the workings of humanitarianism as well as in the experience of those who have to cross these borders without having the right

paperwork to do so. The core argument of this thesis suggests that the border is not only to be crossed, but is moveable and embodied by people as well (Balibar 2002, Khosravi 2007, Raj 2006). The latter is unintentionally produced by both state, as well as non-state actors (Andersson 2014), whose practices both revolve around discretionary values and norms of humanitarianism (Fassin 2010). Humanitarianism plays a pivotal role in border practices, border production and border embodiment as it centers around practices of care and control and as it often finds itself in a position where it manages and serves the population it pursues to aid. Through an ethnographic point of departure that is based on encounters between several actors in the hotspot, this thesis shows mundane and day-to-day practices that all contribute to the argument that borders and its practices are embodied, real, lived, felt and even become visible on bodies sometimes.

Key words: humanitarianism, care and control, border, border practices, border crossing, border embodiment, hotspot, Greece

(4)

4 Cup bearer! Everything they told us is wind.

(translation picture, poet in the camp citing Omar Khayam, March 2017).

Interpretation as given to me in the camp (March 2017): life is disloyal like the wind. It comes and goes, moves from place to place, invisibly.

(5)

5 “Can we ask you a question?” two poets in the camp ask.

The other volunteer and I look at each other. “Yes, of course?” “Why are you here?”, they say, their eyes wide open with curiosity.

“Because I want to help other people”, the other volunteers says, “people that are in need.” The poets look at each other, puzzled.

“What about you?” they ask me. Their big eyes are staring at me now.

“I am here to be here, to participate in the activities and to observe what happens here.” The poets look at each other. They are confused.

“So you are not here for money?” they say after a while.

“You know”, one continues, “some people give you a helping hand, but they first want money.” “Are you really here to help?”

The other volunteer and I cannot believe that they are so puzzled. Now we all stare at each other with wide open eyes.

“Well then,” one of the poets finally says, “I hope you are not like dinosaurs”. “What?” answers the other volunteer.

“That we should not get extinct!” I cry out loud, laughing. (Conversation in the hotspot of Samos, March 2017)

(6)

6

Acknowledgements

I would like to wholeheartedly thank all the people that I have encountered during my stay on Samos. As some travelers are more praised than others, are more mobile than others, it is inevitable that some of my informants are still living between the razor wired fences of the hotspot. Life is disloyal like the wind sometimes. May the wind take you to different places soon, where there is no razor wire, where there are no tall fences, deep seas and blue bruises. I want to thank my informants that live in the hotspot for being so open with me, for sharing their stories that take place at sea or inland, for sharing their perspectives on the border, humanitarian work and the hotspot, for making me reflect upon my role as both a researcher and a voluntary humanitarian worker. Secondly, I want to thank BRF for granting me access to the hotspot and giving me permission to conduct my fieldwork among its volunteers. Without this support, I would not have been able to write this thesis. Thirdly, I want to thank Ben, Ashly and Phil for correcting my English and erasing all the’ Dutch-ness’ in my English sentences. Fourthly, I want to thank the coordinator and field coordinator on Samos. You have been and still are my heroes. I admire your dedication; working day and night to alleviate sufferance and improve the conditions in the camp. Fifthly, I want to thank my family and friends. Without your support and listening ears I could not have conducted my research. Sixthly I, of course, thank all you lovely volunteers for sharing your visions, knowledge, experiences and above all, for making me feel at home and letting me be one of you, interview you. Last but not least, I would like to thank my supervisor Katerina Rozakou. Without your critical view, emails in the field, input, feedback and trust, this thesis would never have become what it is now.

(7)

7

Introduction

An ethnographic story about the encounter between humanitarianism and border crossers in and around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos

“There is a gulf, the gulf of Turkey. We had to stay close to the gulf, so that we did not go to the sea, so that we arrived quickly (to Samos). But the waves were getting us more far than the gulf. But we had no options. The driver (of the plastic boat) said we were following the waves, because if you get against the waves you will flip the boat. And he was trying to get with the waves. We spent three hours and a half. When I had the GPS, I found ourselves only in the middle (of the gulf). Three hours and a half and we were still in the middle. Then, I don’t know who’s idea it was, but he said “let’s call the marine. Let’s call the Turkish marine.” And then I called 911, it was not working. Then I called 112 and I said “this is an emergency and we are in the middle of the sea”.(…)

They gave me a number. The number of the marine. It was 178, or 179. No, no, 158 or 157. I called both of them. Some Greek person replied on my call and he said “give me your number”. I said “I don’t know my number”, because I did not memorize it. He said, “okay I will give you mine”. I added him on WhatsApp. I still don’t know who he is. I showed him where we were and the marine came to us. The marine came to us. They saved us. They brought us here. They landed us there (points at

the port in the city center of Samos)” ( interview Mani1_{, March 2017).}

1_{All the names in this document are pseudonyms, except for Omar’s in chapter 3; his personal video is publicly accessible on}

Facebook. Moreover, all the personal features such as age, gender, clothes, former jobs and studies are changed to protect my informants and to keep their identity anonymous.

(10)

10 “You can be a citizen or you can be stateless, but is it difficult to imagine being a border?”

(Balibar 2002: 74)

The world is on the move. That, at least, is what we are often told (Andersson 2014: 4). We live in a world where strangers send you to Greece in small boats and where strangers save you after they have been added to your WhatsApp. This world that is supposedly on the move, is surrounded by borders. Borders have to be crossed for people to be able to move from one nation-state to another. They are as tall as razor wired fences, as deep as the Aegean sea2_{, as Andersson (2014) metaphorically describes} them. They are as well as flimsy as some tents, as elaborate as the marine’s rescue operations, as green as the army and as blue as the bruises and the police. Fassin (2011) argues that the world that is on the move is characterized by the policing of physical borders. This thesis builds upon this argument and revolves around the statement that the world is characterized by the production of borders in all its variety. Anthropological studies have highlighted the renewed role of the nation-state in protecting their geographical borders through surveillance apparatus, through rights to asylum and its growing declines, through regimes of detention and deportation of strangers in its territory. All these logics are found in every-day practices, the mundanities of bureaucracies, the workings of humanitarianism as well as in the experience of those who have to cross these borders without having the right paperwork to do so. We move gradually towards the core argument of this thesis that suggests that the border cannot only be crossed, but can be moveable and embodied as well. This is unintentionally produced by both state, as well as non-state actors whose practices revolve around discretionary values and norms of humanitarianism (Fassin 2011).

First we move towards Greece. On a small island named Samos, located in the Aegean only 1.5 kilometers away from the Turkish coast, a large flow of people reaches the island via the Turkish town Izmir where smugglers transport people in small boats from the Turkish to the Greek coast. After having made an often terrifying and tumultuous journey at sea across the border, these people are brought land inwards to the hotspot3_{on Samos by marines, army, coastguards or humanitarian workers. In this}

2_{While writing the chapter I got inspired by Andersson’s (2014) metaphors “as tall as a fence” and “as deep as the sea”}

(Andersson 2014:1). His metaphors seemed to be suitable as my chapter’s titles and as metaphors for some of the borders the border crossers in this thesis face. In addition to Andersson’s (2014) metaphors, I add another one in chapter 3.

3_{I will refer to the hotspot on Samos as ‘the camp’. In the spoken language of the volunteers of Boat Refugee Foundation –}

the organization I volunteered with- the hotspot was often called a ‘refugee camp’. A hotspot in my experience, however, is not a refugee camp as it is mainly organized to determine who belongs to this category. In spoken language we used the term ‘the camp’. For that reason I will use either the term ‘hotspot’, or ‘the camp’. The official name of the hotspot is RIC; Registration and Identification Center.

(11)

11 camp border crossers4_{have to live until it is decided they can leave the island to the mainland}5_{. Once} known for its glorious habitants such as the mathematician Pythagoras, or the philosopher Epicurus, Samos is now known for, amongst others, its border crossers and hotspot. Whereas the praised travelers who belong to nation-states dwell the island during the summer months, the border crossers who have traversed the Aegean in small and rickety boats live on the island for months sometimes. A controversial tourist report of a travel agency6_{declared that border crossers in small and rickety boats would not be} seen in the cozy bars in the town Kokkari, nor in the beautiful small church, nor on the beach, and in the capital town Vathy. It is said they would not even be recognized if you would stand next to the hotspot where the border crossers live. In other words, tourists who crossed all kinds of borders to reach Samos would not have to worry when they would visit this touristic paradise at the border of Europe, because the other border crossers would be invisible7_{. Whereas for some tourists the island might serve as a} summer paradise, for others the island is a place where their movements and lives are slowed down, stopped even. When I arrived to Samos in January during winter, some small Greek towns on the island were full of hollow and deserted hotels. We have even crossed almost entirely empty ghost towns on our way around the island and yet the hotspot was then still filled with flimsy tents and overcrowded. Also during the freezing nights.

Before we turn to what a hotspot is exactly, as far as defining it is possible, we first turn back to how the hotspot approach has come to life. In May 2015 the European Commission issued its “Agenda on Migration” as a result of the critical humanitarian situation in the Mediterranean. Border countries Greece and Italy were both accused of letting border crossers pass their territories without fingerprinting them or receiving their asylum requests as the Dublin III Agreement proposes. Greece and Italy, on their turn, asked for a burden sharing between the countries in the borderlands of Europe and their fellow EU Member States in the north. So the hotspot was planned as a program in which relocation of Syrian, Eritrean and Somali border crossers to other EU countries would be prioritized. This relocation program, however, is uncomfortably slow as providing relocation places and meeting these targets are voluntary practices (Martin and Tazzioli 2016). “The hotspot approach serves as a

4_{From now on I will use the term ‘border crossers to refer to those who crossed the Aegean in small boats. In spoken language,}

newspapers or even academic articles these border crossers are often referred to as for example ‘refugees’, ‘migrants’ or ‘asylum seekers’. Not every border crosser, however, belongs to one of those sometimes excluding and deserving categories.

5_{These decisions are often based on amongst others approval of asylum requests, level of vulnerability or a need for medical}

aid that is not available on the island nor in the hotspot itself.

6_{Bolle, Joram. 15 juli 2016. NRC.nl.}

https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2016/07/15/ga-lekker-naar-samos-want-geen-vluchteling-te-bekennen-aldus-d-reizen-a1511777 (accessed 24/6/2017). Translation of the title, freely translated by the author: “just go to Samos, because there is no refugee to be seen”

7_{Bolle, Joram. 15 juli 2016. NRC.nl.}

(12)

12 registration program for border crossers, processing asylum claims and performing deportation” (Martin and Tazzioli 2016).

Generally speaking, hotspots are processing centers, specifically aimed at enforcing Dublin Agreement and ‘streamlining’ asylum processing. Several organizations such as the European Asylum Support Office (EASO), EU Judicial Cooperation Agency (Eurojust), and EU Border Agency (FRONTEX) work together with national work with national immigration agencies to screen border crossers that cross the Aegean in small and rickety boats. They take their fingerprints, verify their identity, register them and render asylum decisions in cooperation with national asylum law (Martin and Tazzioli 2016).

According to the European Commission a hotspot is an official camp situated at Europe’s borders in countries where the migration flow is largest or most dominant. After being identified, registered and fingerprinted, selective mechanisms start to work and separate those who are allowed to travel further to the mainland, and those whose appeal for mobility has been rejected. The hotspot approach clearly reflects a bureaucratic attempt for creating streamlined asylum processes to manage migration and mobility over Europe’s borders (Martin and Tazzioli 2016)

Willy and I sit in the large living room in the volunteers’ house of Boat Refugee Foundation (BRF), a Dutch humanitarian organization at work in the hotspot on Samos. Willy is a teacher from the Netherlands and has just arrived to Samos to volunteer for BRF. The view from the large window in the room enables us to see Samos’ bay, Vathy and the hotspot which is situated right above Vathy on the other far end of town. Willy tells me about a demonstration in The Hague. People gathered on a square to demonstrate using slogans like “perhaps we should come and get them!”. Also in the Netherlands the relocation target of 3797 border crossers has not been met. It feels contradictory to all of us volunteers to work in a small camp that is designed for only 850 people. In theory The Netherlands could just relocate them all, could they not? The hotspot would be empty afterwards and we would all be going home (informal conversations with volunteers, January–March 2017). Of course we volunteers, as well as the nation-states in Europe, know that the flow is not ending and that borders will be crossed in the future (Raj 2006). Yet, this contradictory feeling colored our work as volunteers. What were we actually doing in the hotspot if all the border crossers could theoretically be relocated to The Netherlands at once? In terms of care and control, humanitarianism plays a pivotal role in border practices as it revolves around both practices of care and control. Its moralities both shape the tasks of the humanitarian apparatus as well as those of border guards.

(13)

13

The paradox of humanitarianism at the border

Willy, the other volunteers of BRF and I are all a part of a humanitarian apparatus that is at work at the border. Pallister-Wilkins (2015: 53) argues that there is an increase in humanitarian justifications for border policing practices as well as the charges of a lack of humanity. Humanitarianism, she says, is often used for the framing of and meaning-giving to institutional and operational practices. While it frames ‘good practices’ that revolve around the concept of humanity, however, it ought not to be seen as additional or paradoxical to forms of governance that are aimed to manage and address the problems of population (Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 54). Humanitarianism is always two sided as it revolves around both care and control (Andersson 2014, Fassin 2010, Fassin 2011, Foucault 2009, Pallister-Wilkins 2015, Pallister-Wilkins 2016a). “Conflict arises in the paradox of protection between the subject of humanitarianism and policing, the population, and the object of border control, the territorially bounded state or regional unit” (Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 53). This tension, conflict and paradox result in border practices that both care for the border crossers’ welfare in terms of shelter, medical aid and nutrition, as well as in the apparent need to control border crossers’ mobility, as is illustrated throughout this thesis.

In recent years there has not only been a trend in helping those that are defined at risk or in need of care, but also an improved technological ability to rescue (Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 59). Coastguards, marines, humanitarian organizations all sail the high seas to perform spectacular acts of rescuing and saving. Meanwhile the principles around which humanitarianism revolves are based on neutrality, impartiality, unity, universality and humanity. Humanitarian principles, however, do not necessarily have to be deployed by humanitarians only. Also police forces, militaries and government agencies use these concerns as they too often frame their work at sea in terms of rescuing and saving (Pallister-Wilkins 2015). Foucault (2009) states that humanitarian concerns were already deployed in forms of policing and governance in the seventeenth century. Especially the meaning and practicalities of the concept of humanity, which is central in humanitarian discourse and imagery, have become unclear in the mingling acts of care and control. Its meaning can be contradictory and different. Fassin (2010) states that what he defines as ‘moral sentiments’, have become a powerful tool in political life as it fuels hegemonic discourses and legitimizes practices; especially when they concern those who are framed as the disadvantaged. The problem that arises from the lack of clarity that comes along with the notion of humanity, is that when everybody speaks in the name of it, nobody can monopolize its meaning (Feldman and Ticktin 2010: 1). The cacophony of competing voices that aims to define the concept of humanity transforms it into an almost empty signifier that can easily be dismissed. Humanity becomes concrete and tangible when it is carried out situationally, historically and geographically on behalf of the other (Fassin 2010, Feldman and Ticktin 2010).

(14)

14 To speak in the name of humanity alleges a powerful position (Feldman and Ticktin 2010: 1). The paradox of humanity, however, is that its universal claims are always challenged as those who are considered in need of care are often the products of other human beings; often people are in need of care or at risk, because of other people’s deeds (Feldman and Ticktin 2010: 5, Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 59). These moral sentiments therefore often fluctuate between sympathy and a need of order, and politics of pity and policies of control. For this reason humanitarianism is always linked to both compassion and fear or insecurity. In this light we abandon the idea of humanitarianism as something neutral or value free, as it derives from relations and hierarchies of power and it is employed for the governance of populations (Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 59). Humanitarianism, its concepts and its practices are just as much acts of control and care as acts of the government, the state or authorities. In the context of the flow of people that arrives to Samos, it is clear that this flow as a phenomenon cannot be eliminated, but must be controlled and governed. When Mani, who opens this introduction, tells us about his journey in the gulf near Samos, he is saved by a stranger. They added each other on WhatsApp whereupon Mani sent the location of their small boat to the man. Not long after a marine ship arrived and saved them, as Mani frames it. To be framed in terms of saving and rescue, in terms of humanity, is what Feldman and Ticktin (2010) call this powerful position. To be framed in terms of a moral position strengthens ones position as an actor in border policing.

Although the previous argument includes a marine ship and not an for example clearly defined humanitarian actors, it does illustrate that “humanitarianism and policing are not two separate or competing practices” (Pallister-Wilkins 2015: 66). In this regard the argument in this thesis revolves around humanitarianism as another actor in the practices that take place around the border, as well as in the practices of producing the border. Also Andersson (2014) speaks of the merge of humanitarianism and control. The hypervisibility of migrants in the humanitarian notions of rescues at sea that portray control, and the image of migrants within the subject position of those flows, “huddles” and “hordes” that can be rescued in terms of care, are two acts of the same border spectacle (Andersson 2014: 170). He too states that these logics of bordering are not contradictory, but complementary. Practices of bordering always come along with physical representations of a border itself. Very spectacular ones sometimes as they are visualized through marine ships. As I already implicated in the first paragraph of this section, borders can have different shapes and are sometimes as tall as a fence and sometimes as deep and blue as the sea. But what is a border exactly? To define what a border is, however, is not as simple as the question appears. Balibar (2002: 75) argues that when you go back to Roman times, or to when the notion of cosmopolitanism in the eighteen century was invented, it becomes clear that the border of a European monarchy has little to do with the borders that Schengen Convention is so eagerly strengthening nowadays.

(15)

15

Defining the border

The European Union itself is central in a rapid succession and transformation of the formal and legal functions of the European political and economic borders. States belong or do not belong to the Schengen Area and shift from being or not being in the European Union or the Eurozone. This internal and external complexion of the EU’s border regime, makes it difficult to say where ‘Europe’ is exactly located (Green 2013: 346). The EU’s vision of Europe is evolving, changing, never completed , which results in, as Green (2013) states, a permanently indistinct meaning or value of Europe as an idea. Maps have regularly been redrawn. Not only borders shifted position, but also mapping techniques shifted themselves; techniques that implied their own characterizing logic for defining the world and its internal and external divisions (Green 2013: 346). Green further suggests that locating external borders and boundaries requires not only the location of geographical lines, but also an understanding of current and past relations among those places8_{. Research on borders has shifted through time. Borders, Green} (2013: 349) states, “not only alter people’s relations with a place, but also redeﬁne the actual places that borders mark, draw together, and separate. (Moreover) (…) the focus has shifted more to how places, locations, and spatial relations are being reclassiﬁed as border regimes change; in a sense, research has turned more toward shifts in the ground underneath everyone’s feet”. This thesis moves with scholars like Balibar (2002) and Khosravi (2006) who both suggest that the border can be embodied. In the light of Andersson’s (2014) argument, this embodiment is something that is produced (un)intentionally by the state as well as by non-state actors. This means for us that our focus will not only shift to the ground underneath one’s feet, but also to those feet that walk these grounds.

In a Durkheimian and Weberian tradition, the border is generally viewed as a territorial limit that defines political entities such as states, and legal objects, often citizens (Fassin 2010: 2014). The idea of a simple definition of a border is, however, as absurd as some of the spectacles that happen in, around and on borders. “To mark out a border is, precisely, to define a territory, to delimit it, and so to register the identity of that territory, or confer one upon it” (Balibar 2002: 76). In this sense the very representation of a border is the precondition for its definition, what endangers the definer of going around in circles. Defining a border also has a very concrete side to it. Every discussion of borders relate to defined identities, or rather identifications, no matter if they are national or otherwise. These identifications can differ from active to passive, from individual to collective, or from voluntarily to

8_{These past and current relations, however, are missing throughout this thesis. The Greek, Turkish and European border is a}

border one that has been contested for a long time. As Katerina Rozakou mentioned in a feedback session, the fact that historical knowledge on this border is missing in both my work and the work of the volunteers in the hotspot on the border of Europe, Turkey and Greece is again something peculiar (Informal comment, Rozakou June 6th_{, 2017). This, as she stated as well,}

almost results in, the way it is presented now, the hotspot being a non-place; a place that could be everywhere, could be even be the hotspot on Lampedusa. Even though this is one of the weak points of this thesis, it does not reduce my argument about the embodiment and production of the border in my view.

(16)

16 imposed. Nonetheless, their multiplicity, fictiveness or hypothetical basis does not make them any less real, or less lived and experienced (Balibar 2002: 76). These identifications and definitions often require a simplification of complexity and this simplification, controversially, can cause a permanent complexity. The state, Balibar (2002) argues, is an actor that often simplifies complexity even though its very own existence is a cause of permanent complexity. Reducing or simplifying the border is, however, not merely something theoretical. The consequences of these definitions are felt and lived every day. Reducing a complex issue as the border to a simple definition does not mean that this thesis aims at a ‘Hobbesian’ reduction of a complexity where a simple central actor as the state uses its monopoly of legitimate violence, sanctioned by the law. In this case simple “troublemakers” (Balibar 2002: 77) could be pinned down here and there. Outcomes of the border, however, are sometimes indefinable and impossible identities that pop up here and there and appear in various places. These outcomes are for some a life-and-death matter and they represent the state’s ability to take live or to let live (Fassin 2010, Foucault 1978). Bordering had become an active technique that define the places in which people move and live. Simultaneously, these techniques also build, maintain, control and alter borders and order space and relations between here and elsewhere (Green 2013: 350, Green 2013: 355). These techniques include a bureaucratic apparatus that works to control, define and exclude displaced people and define places and spatial relations (Malkki 1992 and Arendt 1958, 1962, cited in Green 2013: 355) .

Following Marxist ideas, Balibar (2002) differentiates between the rich and the poor and argues that for a rich person who tends to belong to the cosmopolitan national, the border is a formality and a point of symbolic recognition of his or her social status. Conversely, for a poor person it might become a place where he or she resides, a zone where he or she waits to live, a spatio-temporal zone that constantly needs to be passed or repassed. Balibar (2002) also claims that for the poor that reside on the border, their life is a non-life. What this ethnographic thesis shows, however, is that also life on the border is real and emotionally lived. “André Green has once written that it is difficult enough to live on the border, but that is as nothing compared with being a border oneself” (Green, cited in Balibar 2002: 83).

The large amount of people that traverses the Aegean that surrounds Samos, tends to question the merging of political, socioeconomic and cultural borders; something that has emerged with the existence of the nation-state and its clear territorial and geographical boundaries. Border crossers who reside on the border, cross the border without the right paperwork or permission to do so, or border crossers who are the border as André Green argues (Green, cited in Balibar 2002: 83), lead us to the argument that borders nowadays do not necessarily have to be situated at the border itself anymore. Borders are embodied and therefore move and follow the footsteps of those who embody it. Though becoming and embodying the border, border crossers in their act of crossing the Aegean in small and

(17)

17 rickety boats, contest the very borders of the nation-state themselves (informal comment, Katerina Rozakou, June 2017).

“Contemporary societies are increasingly entities with borders and control, walls and gates” (Fassin 2010: 216). The flows of people that arrive to Europe are closely related to the construction of these borders, control, walls and gates. It is intermingled with sovereignty and identity, and therefore with the nation-state. At the same time this flow of people is situated at what Fassin (2010: 221) calls the crux of what constitutes the three pillars of governmentality; economy, police and humanitarianism. It is exactly here where the relation between humanitarianism, that is, my point of departure in the field, and borders is located. Humanitarianism, Feldman and Ticktin (2010: 13) state, is often in the position of governing, managing and servicing the population it pursues to aid. Therefore humanitarianism is also in the position of contributing to the production and the embodiment of borders themselves. Deriving from a humanitarian based role as both a master student researcher, researcher for BRF itself and volunteer, I aim to answer the following question in this thesis:

What role does the encounter between humanitarianism and border-crossers play in European border-practices in and around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos?

1. What are the main practices of the hotspot in terms of care and control? 2. What does the encounter between volunteers and hotspot residents produce? 3. How does border-embodiment affect border-practices?

With this thesis I aim to contribute to the theories on how hotspots and borders in the age of the EU-Turkey Agreement function, are lived, experienced and perceived. The ethnographic angle allows me to write in a bottom-up approach where camp residents and humanitarians speak. With their words I present a grounded theory that is in line with and inspired by scholars like Andersson (2014), Balibar (2002), Fassin (2010, 2011), Feldman and Ticktin (2010), Khosravi (2007), Raj (2006), and many others. As the hotspot approach is a relatively new development in Europe’s answer to the flow of border-crossers, this thesis will provide data on how these developments are perceived by those whose lives are influenced by it. Furthermore this piece of work contributes to what we perceive as the borders of nation-states and the paradox that comes along with them; those for whom the border is as tall as a fence, as deep as the sea or as blue as a bruise, or in other words, for whom the border might exist, appear also to be the very same ones who contest these borders (informal comment, Rozakou 2017). By de-essentializing the border, or at least the definition that has been presented here, new avenues are opened for social science (Fassin 2010: 215). As these avenues already have been opened, I aim to follow these theories that perceive the border as something more than a territorial limit that defines the state and its population.

(18)

18 The first chapter highlights the political context of the hotspot and describes the hotspot as a political border through the encounter and interaction between new arrivals9_{and bureaucracy.} Furthermore it questions the definition of the hotspot, as in the age of the EU-Turkey Agreement one of its core functions stopped working. The second chapter takes place in between the bright prison lights at the main entrance of the camp and enlightens the social aspects of the border. Through social interactions and encounters between the humanitarians and those ‘in need of care’ the border becomes metaphorically uncomfortable and colorful. Besides, humanitarianism and its productive role in the creation of borders is discussed. The final chapter takes us to the ferry that for many border crossers is the only way to leave the island. Again we will be in between lights, as the flash lights of authorities will always follow us. In this chapter the border is not only as tall as a fence or as deep as the sea, but also as blue as bruises and as moveable as border crossers. The punitive character of the border illuminates the violent side of today’s borders. Moreover, it shows that borders have become more moveable than as how they are portrayed on static world maps. This chapter follows Balibar’s (2002) argument by stating that border crossers sometimes are the very embodiment of borders themselves.

An important point to stress is that “I do not invoke (border crossers) as a political concept in order to homogenize people who are forced to be borders, to conflate their diverse and hybrid experiences, or to create a universal subject. Rather, I specify how being a border does the violence of locating particular people as (border crossers) precisely by attempting to elide their political subjectivities and sensibilities” (Raj 2006: 514)”. Moreover, I also do not intend to transform the border crossers who are portrayed in this thesis into typical, stereotypical or stigmatized border crossers identities. All personal characteristics that I present in this thesis -though I have changed them for safety reasons- are based on the interviews I have conducted in which I always asked the question “can you tell me something about who you are?”.

All the personal stories I have heard of how camp residents moved with, in, around and across the border will contribute to this ethnographic story that takes place around the Turkish, Greek and European border that surrounds Samos: a border that is not only static and geographical, but also fluid and social, political and personal. This is a thesis about the hidden stories that take place unseen and are sometimes discovered by flashlights. These stories not only proved me that migration in and around boats is dangerous and tumultuous, but that it can also be absurd and spectacular.

(19)

(20)

20 Entrance of the hotspot, downhill, Samos.

(21)

21

Chapter 1: As Deep As The Sea

The hotspot as a political border

“When I reached here.. The first feeling is fear. We were afraid. It was a terrible emotion. The

police took me in a military ship. And it was very bad, I remember it now. In the boat, the water hit my back. All the night we were in the boat from four o’clock to about six (sighs), three hours in the sea. We did not know what we could do and what would happen. I wore this (points at her

long, woolen black coat). It is like a sponge, very heavy and it absorbed all the water.

When they took us, we thanked them, because they saved us. It is positive and negative. They saved us. But their treatment is not good. They take us to the surface of the ship. It was very cold. There were many blankets and they gave me one, but I could not take it because there were many children. I put it on the children. But still for about two hours they searched for others, for another boat. So maybe they had a call that there was another boat. They put us a long time there. To count us. Not to take our names and to put us in a bus. And brought us to the camp (the hotspot). We stayed in the camp around the police office from ten to five. It is seven hours without food, drinks. (…) We are very tired, we are very hungry and we feel cold.

The second day after this thing, my family took me to the emergency. Because I was vomiting and had spasms, because of the cold. They waited a long time to take our names, to take our fingerprints. I think it is not wrong, but not good. They took our photos for hours. After that they took our fingerprints for hours. After that they took our names for hours. Why? Why could they not take my family, my names, took us to a police officer to put our finger prints and go out? Why should we wait all, to put our names? It takes a long time this. When they took us to take our fingerprints they gave us numbers (sighs). They called for example number 26. They put 26 in the end of the entrance. After that he wants three or two minutes to come. After that he wants 81. Why can you not say the numbers in an arrangement? So when you say 20, number 20 will come. After that 21 will be ready, 22 will be ready too. This is the problem too. I could not say this to them, but it is better I think to arrange the process. It is good for them and for us. For every family, if they write their names and take their photos, take fingerprints, take their things and go. Give them their things and their food and let them go. Why do they have to stay all the day. This was a problem for us and for all who came to this island. I don’t know if they do this in other islands or not” (interview with Shayma, March 2017).

(22)

22 The military ship brings Shayma to the hotspot on Samos. After crossing the deep sea, Shayma is brought to the tall fences where bureaucratic processes, registration and identification take place. Practices of statecraft are performed through fingerprinting and the collection of names, ages, countries of origin and other information that the state needs. Whereas ‘refugee camps’ are run by humanitarian organizations, hotspots differ considerably as they are run by authorities; police in blue and army in green. These “bureaucrats with weapons” (Graeber 2012: 117, cited in Rozakou 2017: 37) carry out the practices of care and control that not only characterize the hotspot, but also constitute its main functions.

In this chapter we travel through time and move back to the opening of the hotspot in February 2016. Farida, the coordinator of BRF talks us through to the history of the camp and to what the EU-Turkey Agreement entails and means for the hotspot. The chapter addresses the following questions: How does the lived reality of the hotspot differ from its originally planned functions? What does the hotspot do? This first chapter is pivotal in explaining the context where the humanitarian work of BRF is performed. More than just providing some context, it explores the hotspot in terms of care and control, in terms of channeling and exiling. Pallister-Wilkins (2016a) uses the dichotomy ‘control and care’ instead of ‘care and control’ as is often used in critical studies of humanitarianism (Pallister-Wilkins 2015, Pallister-Wilkins 2016a, Agier 2011, Fassin 2010, Feldman and Ticktin 2010). I tend not to present the hotspot as a controlling structure, even though I do not necessarily disagree with that point of view. For this reason I will continue to use the dichotomy ‘care and control’. Because we must not forget that all these hotspot structures, processes, practices and mechanisms are concerned with real lives and real people. Interweaved in this all are practices of bureaucracy and bureaucratic waiting time.

Shayma is a 55 year old chemist from Syria and is on Samos for about six months when I conduct an interview with her. We are on Lion’s Square which is the central square of Vathy, the town where the hotspot on Samos is situated. Today is a beautiful day and all the terraces are full. I am lucky, because in between Shayma’s activities, I am able to meet her to conduct an interview on my day off. While we sit on a terrace in the sun, both drinking a cappuccino, she eats her lunch; a home-made role. It is a typical Syrian recipe, she says. One day she might teach me some delicious Syrian meals. Although it is already half past three, Shayma had not eaten yet. The entire morning she helped a volunteer of BRF who came to join the team as a gynecologist.

Many other residents of the hotspot share a story that is similar to Shayma’s arrival to the hotspot. Since the EU-Turkey Agreement, many boats with border crossers are picked up by coast surveillance ships after which they are brought to the hotspot. Shayma’s story takes you from the moment of being rescued to the first encounter with the camp and already shows some of the hotspot’s

(23)

23 processes and mechanisms that are at work. “Hotspots are the European Union’s solution to “managing the undesirabes” (Agier 2011, Pallister-Wilkins 2016a). Through security practices, acts of rescuing at sea, and mechanisms of identification and registration, hotspots are concerned with both care and control. These processes of care and control now slowly come back to Shayma’s memory while we sit in the sun enjoying our coffee.

A brief history of BRF’s mission on Samos

Half a year before Shayma arrived to Samos, Farida set foot on the island. Farida, after having set up a rescue mission on Leros and assisting a humanitarian crisis on Kos, is now entitled to coordinate Boat Refugee Foundation’s mission on Samos. We go back in time to February 2016. Every hotspot has its own situational and specific context and its own history which form the pillars to understand or describe how they function in the here and now. And so does the hotspot on Samos.

BRF works on Samos since February 2016. At first, the mission focused on boats that arrived to the island. These rescue missions also entailed night patrol at the coast. At the time that BRF arrived to Samos, there was an open camp situated at the port (interview Farida, March 2017). It housed the border crossers that traversed the Aegean in small boats. Moreover, it functioned as a transit camp. Border crossers stayed in the camp for only a few days, at most weeks, before they moved further to the mainland. BRF also started to transport the most vulnerable to port camp after they had been registered. Moreover, BRF started to do kids activities and its medical volunteers took part in the shift of a French NGO. These shifts took place in the registration camp uphill, which is now the hotspot. In April 2016 BRF had a shared responsibility in managing port camp. In addition to the described tasks, BRF also became responsible for housing allocation and the distribution of blankets, mats, sleeping bags, hygiene kits, water and biscuits.

However, the tasks of BRF, as well as the entire situation on the island drastically changed with the opening of the hotspot. In our interview Farida explains how the port camp got shut down and the hotpot was opened.

“During the week I arrived, the EU decided that in a week or two all hotspots had to be opened.

The hotspots were supposed to start functioning in September 2015, but that did not occur. At a certain moment, there was clearly expressed that the hotspots had to be opened now. I remember that I arrived on a Sunday. A few days later, on Thursday, I was in a coordination meeting (meeting

with all the coordinators of all the organizations at work in the camp). Somebody entered and told

(24)

24

post in port camp anymore, because the crane picked the containers up and replaced them in the camp uphill. They were making the hotspot functional” (interview Farida, March 2017).

In March all BRF’s previous activities had become obsolete as a result of the EU-Turkey Agreement. The port camp was demolished and housing units were all moved to the registration camp uphill. The hotspot uphill, in contrast to the port camp, was a closed camp. Border crossers were now detained at least for 25days before they were allowed to move freely on the island. Farida states that it is important to see all the steps of BRF; to know about how the situation on the islands has changed as a result of the EU-Turkey Agreement; to know the shift from an open camp at the port, to a steep, closed hotspot uphill. It is in this situation that all the organizations, volunteers and humanitarian workers now operate.

“When I arrived in September 2015 (in Greece) the situation was a real emergency situation. You

really noticed that people worked together to cover all the basic needs and that the situation really improved. In January 2016, you saw well-functioning, streamlined camps where it was just, when people arrived, clear what happened. It was humane and there was a humane system. Basic needs were covered. With the opening of the hotspots and the EU-Turkey Agreement, we just saw that this humane system had been reduced to rubble and that we could start all over again, but then within the structure of the hotspot. (…) The moment the Agreement had been made and many organizations chose to operate in the camp [hotspot] or not, it was clear to us that medical aid was needed and that there was no medical aid for hundreds and later thousands of people in the evenings and during the weekends” (Interview Farida, March 2017).

As a result of the medical gap in the hotspot after the EU-Turkey Agreement, BRF decided to work within the tall razor wired fences of the uphill hotspot during the evenings and the weekends. The other medical organization that operates in the hotspot is contracted for 850 people. BRF is also present for the times when the number of residents exceeds 850. Although it appears clear why BRF as a humanitarian organization decided to operate in the camp, it has become muddy, blurry and unclear as to what a hotspot actually does in the era post the EU-Turkey Agreement. Furthermore, one key responsibility of the hotspot has stopped functioning: relocation.

Hotspots in an era of the EU-Turkey Agreement

As previously described in the introduction of this chapter, hotspots are built around controlling, managing, monitoring and channeling practices. They also revolve around the care for human bodies. These two responsibilities to manage mobility and to manage life, have become blurred and result in an uneasy politics of modulating life (Pallister-Wilkins 2016a). I remember that while I was sitting in the

(25)

25 living room of the BRF’s volunteers house, thinking about the blog I just wrote, Farida called me. As the blog I wrote for the Facebook page of BRF about the EU-Turkey Agreement and hotspots was nuanced and careful, she wanted to reassure me that the relocation function of the hotspot had actually been stopped, and not slowed down, now that the EU-Turkey Agreement was in place. This meant that one of the original functions of the hotspot had been halted. Feeling puzzled and staring at the camp through the window in the distance, I was left with this thought; what does a hotspot actually still do nowadays? Why is it even there if one of its main functions, relocation, does not work any longer?

“At its core, the agreement (The EU-Turkey Agreement) aims to address the overwhelming flow of smuggled migrants and asylum seekers traveling across the Aegean from Turkey to the Greek islands by allowing Greece to return to Turkey “all new irregular migrants” arriving after March 20. In exchange, EU Member States will increase resettlement of Syrian (, Eritrean and Somalian

(Martin and Tazzioli 2016)) refugees residing in Turkey, accelerate visa liberalization for Turkish

nationals, and boost existing financial support for Turkey’s refugee population”10_.

Relocation processes to other member states have been voluntary and slow. Martin and Tazzioli (2016) state that the hotspot approach in an age of the EU-Turkey Agreement resembled past practices of detention, forced fingerprinting, and slow asylum processing times. The EU-Turkey Agreement has been brought to life to discourage the flow of people coming to Europe and indeed, according to the fifth report of the European Commission. Crossings from Turkey to Greece and resultant deaths have decreased since its launch. After the Agreement has been made, many things changed in hotspots. The transit function of the port camp on Samos and the hotspot’s relocation of refugees over Europe had stopped. As a result, many people are stuck on the island, sometimes for months at a time, in a camp that was originally planned to host people for several days – at most weeks. Border crossers who arrive at the hotspot after the 20th_{of March and that do not have any family members in Europe for} reunification, are currently immobile. In the best case they apply for asylum in Greece.

What the hotspot does besides stopping border crossers from moving and getting relocated over Europe, comes close to what Colin Hoag (2014) describes as bureaucratic waiting time. “Time textures everyday bureaucratic processes” (Hoag 2014: 410) and not only captures and controls time, but also orients people towards a certain hope and despair for a future that has yet to come. This future is often uncertain, a not-yet, as it is the bureaucratic process which will determine what it will look like. The ability to orient people towards a certain future is a powerful tool that bureaucracies have. In the hotspot border crossers wait for a future that is not-yet determined. The identification and registration

10_{Elizabeth Collet, The Paradox of the EU-Turkey Deal, March 2016:}

(26)

26 processes aim at relocation even though this function might have stopped working. Being on the island for months, as for example Shayma, is an outcome of bureaucratic procedures that have generated a bureaucratic waiting time in which border crossers like Shayma live in the hotspot and wait until their future is decided.

Muddy feet and a closed gate

“They close the gates (of the medical area). We are locked in with police and a group of new arrivals. For the first time I feel that we are actually in a cage. All these weeks I have seen the fences around the medical area, but the two gates were always open. Now we are locked in. The authorities closed everything. I have been told that they arrived only three hours ago. Their shoes are covered in mud. Just as their small bags on the ground, next to their muddy shoes. The women are crying or staring. The men are staring to something only they can see, their eyes empty. There must be around 20 of them, sitting, waiting. This baby can’t stop crying. All the stress, fear and emotions cannot leave the closed medical area. The older children are all wet. It is a mixture of water and their own pee. The smell is horrible. In our cabin we let a mother change her baby’s diaper. Women still cry, men still stare and we are locked in, surrounded by smells of human poo and pee.

A man comes towards me, asks for a cup of tea. I say “no, I am sorry, I can’t give you a cup of tea”. I explain to him that we don’t have enough cups for the now 700 persons living in the camp, that’s why everybody brings his own cup. If we give somebody one cup, we must give a cup to everybody. He walks to the others again with his muddy feet. Although I completely understand and agree with the logic of our teacups, it feels wrong now in these moments after the arrival. Farida arrives too. The closed gate opens for her. I ask her if we can please give them a cup of tea, they can return the cups afterwards. After all, they cannot go anywhere. To my surprise Farida now asks the police officer next to her if it would be okay to give the new arrivals a cup of tea ‘to warm their hands’. It is not a problem.

Farida leaves again, because she has a meeting. Another new arrival comes to me. It is the father of the baby. The baby needs milk. We do have milk, but we don’t have any bottles. He has a bottle himself, but it is in his other bag that is still in the police station next to the medical area, four closed gates away. For him the gates are closed. I walk to a police officer and ask him if the father and I can get his bottle of milk in the police station. He doubts, but agrees. The door opens for us. Or is it opened for my white BRF vest?” (Personal diary, March 2017).

(27)

27 A few things stand out in this event. The gates could potentially be opened or closed, depending on who you were. After border crossers arrive on the island after crossing the European, Greek and Turkish sea border, they keep coming across boundaries and closed gates; gates that open for white BRF vests, but stay closed for those with muddy feet. We were locked in by the police, because the new arrivals were there to receive their medical check which forms part of the identification and registration process. Here, we can clearly see the two main care and control practices within the hotspot at work. We both see the logistics of biopolitical well-being as well as practices of managing mobility: are their bodies okay?; are the minors in the group really minors?; can their medical stories be validated? At the same time we witness those hours and hours of waiting to be fingerprinted, identified and registered. Those hours in which people’s numbers seem to be randomly picked according to Shayma. Here we not only see the mechanisms of bureaucratic waiting time at work (Hoag 2014), but we also see how the hotspot’s bureaucrats collect all the information that the state needs to identify and register a human being (Rozakou 2017).

This cold, wet, scary and emotional period during the first hours of arrival can for this reason be seen as a visualization of the “uneasy politics modulating life” (Pallister-Wilkins 2016a). Although BRF as a humanitarian organization operates within the walls of the hotspots, it does come across some similar gates as the new arrivals sometimes. Farida had to ask for permission to hand out cups of tea. Care and control, control and care; they are at work in the same moments. The conundrum between humanitarian and authoritarian control and care is ever present within the fences of the hotspot and both seem to serve the two purposes of bodily care and well-being. Interwoven are the processes of bureaucracy and time in which border crossers have to wait for a future that is not-yet. This not-yet future in the hotspot is often described by border crossers as the waiting for a ‘normal-life’. This formulation moves beyond describing the residents of the hotspot in terms of state belonging (Rozakou 2017: 39). The encounter between the bureaucrats and the border crossers that takes place in the registration, identification and waiting moments, shape the vague contours of a future. The information that is collected by the state officials in these moments after the rescue and arrival are documented in legible subjects and hotspot papers. In our work we have mostly seen the police paper as people had to show it before receiving medical aid11_{. Most people carefully carry this piece of paper, after they cover} it with plastic to keep it safe from the rain and other external influences, in their pockets and take it everywhere they go; they carry it on their bodies. The paper shows the interplay between

11_{During the registration and identification process, border crossers receive their police paper. This is a small A5 paper with a}

border crossers name, family name, father’s name, mother’s name, country, nationality, age, date of birth, date of arrival, etc. This document serves as an identity card in the hotspot and, as chapter three shows, on the island itself sometimes as well. With this document it becomes possible to receive medical aid in the hotspot, to receive a food paper (a document that has to be showed when you pick up your daily meals) and to receive other forms of aid and care.

(28)

28 humanitarianism, border bureaucracy and the authorities that run the hotspot as it enables several services and constitutes ones identity and therefore existence within the fences of the hotspot. Hoag (2014), however, states that exactly these documents make people illegible to themselves.

Residents of the hotspot are dependent on the opening and closing of gates by authorities. These new arrivals might appear as what Arendt describes as “only humans”; people who are not included in citizenship (Arendt 1951), who have not completed the registration and identification process yet, and are therefore considered to be in a very vulnerable position. The next section, however, illustrates that border crossers can also have an influence on the contours of this not-yet future which is being shaped. Population knowledge must be carefully collected in an age where the government focuses on population management and care (Rozakou 2017: 39). The police papers represent the first materialized step in the bureaucratic process that marks the crossing of the border (Rozakou 2017: 40). They carry all the information the state, or the EU, needs to manage and take care of a person, are populated with the declarations border crossers make. In the age of the EU-Turkey Agreement, however, the information on this small piece of paper can have a lot of influence on your future mobility.

And that is how it started, camp life

“The first time we were here we were all wet. We had wet sneakers. Wet jeans, I don’t know why

they only checked me. They let all the people and I was pretending to be a Syrian. Even with the UNHCR I tried to pretend to be Syrian. I was doing very well, because I speak their language. She was asking me questions, that I know all the answers to. And I replied. I tried to reply with English more than Syrian. Because she may know. I was talking directly to the person responsible, not to the interpreter” (interview Ali, March 2017).

Hotspots are designed to filter people. Population knowledge, in an age where ruling is based on care and control, according to Foucault (2007), not only becomes the goal, but also the justification of a government to expand into the care and management of its population. In the era of governmentality it is population knowledge, birth, death, family planning and public health care that make a society governable (Rozakou 2017). Due to the EU-Turkey Agreement Syrians, Eritreans and Somali asylum seekers are prioritized in the slow or asylum processes of hotspots. For that reason some border crossers pretend to be Syrian, Eritrean or Somalian. Revealing Ali’s true nationality to the authorities would in his case mean that applying for asylum would be equal to signing his deportation contract, or at least that he would lower his mobility. As Aila Spathopoulou (2016) points out, he does not seem to belong to the category of the “deserving refugee”. Hotspots, she says, are situated in a network of

(29)

29 transportation where people are constantly on the move and circulating. In her analysis this network of transportation consists of humanitarian workers, volunteers, doctors, EU officials and researchers.

For some the gates are more open than for others. Spathopoulou (2016) argues that for some nationalities it is difficult to belong to these networks of movement and circulation. In her article she uses a particular border crossers’ nationality as a case study. On Samos there are a few nationalities for whom it is difficult to belong to the nationality related networks of movement and circulation. For them the hotspot not only bounds them in terms of the small razor wire fences that surround the entire geographical terrain, but also bounds them in a more political way, after a period of bureaucratic waiting time there will most likely be no right for them to board the ferry with the official papers provided by the bureaucrats in the hotspot to do so. The label of “deserving refugee” becomes a political game that is played with cards of nationality. I wish not to use the word ‘game’ to describe this process, as this all is concerned with real lives with real people. However, it pops up in my mind all the time that certain political ‘moves’ are frequently made. Perhaps if you play the Syrian card, as Ali has done at the point of his identification and registration, it would mean that the next move would perhaps be the right to an early interview, or the right to board the ferry to Athens with the right papers. Borders, in this sense, are nationality-related as well.

During the interview, Ali switches continuously between identifying himself as a ‘refugee’ and as not being a refugee at all. Ali belongs to a category of an undeserving nationality; one that most likely will not obtain a ticket to board the ferry. He says that others often describe him as a refugee. Moreover, when I ask him how living in the camp affects him, he also identifies himself as a refugee. Apparently this term ‘refugee’ matters within the context of the hotspot. One might even say that it is all that matters.

“So it was all going fine, except for one picture in my phone. Which had my country in it. They were checking, checking and they found a picture. They said “no! You are not from Syria!” I said ”yes, I am from Syria”. They said “stop lying”. I said “I am from Syria, that picture was taken in this country and sent to me by a friend”. They said “no, you are lying”. Then I said “okay, I am lying”.

[…] And it was funny, because Amar and my other friend were trying to pretend to be Syrian too.

I was waiting for their decision, about what they were going to do with me, and looking at my friend and Amar. They were speaking, they were trying to speak the Syrian language, but they were failing. So it was so funny to look at them. And Amar was looking at me and I said “it is all messed up. Stop pretending”. And he started laughing. They started laughing. Besides, they found me bringing a product that is from my country only. (…) And that is how it started, camp life”

(30)

30 Rozakou (2017) describes that an ideal bureaucracy – which does not exist- would revolve around a system of absolute knowledge, control and governance of populations. What we see in this section is that Ali and his friends tried to influence the process of state craft in which the identity of border crossers is registered. Ali knew he could potentially shorten his waiting period in the hotspot and shape his not-yet future in a direction of mobility by pretending to be one of the deserving categories in the hotspot in the age of the EU-Turkey Agreement. Although he has not succeeded, his action shows that after the first direct border crossing Ali has come across a border again. This time in the form of a piece of paper that constitutes his identity. Moreover, his actions reveal that the image of the hotspot as something of order, an image that comes forward in the introduction of Martin and Tazzioli (2016), does not exist. The ideal bureaucracy for that reason is a myth as there is irregularity and chaos in the hotspot (Kalir and Rozakou 2016, Rozakou 2017). I have seen these pieces of paper that form a border crossers’ identity in the hotspot with incorrect names on it, with false identities, incorrect ages. I have seen someone having four of these papers, after three of his friends left for Athens. He has therefore been able to receive food for four persons, every day. It is for this reason that I do not tend to present the hotspot as a mere structure that controls its subjects, as its people undermine it day by day.

Conclusion: a sea of bureaucracies and politics

In an age of the EU-Turkey Agreement one of the originally planned functions, relocation, has stopped. As a result border crossers usually have to reside in the hotspot for months. Applying for asylum in Greece is, for most, the only option left. The time between the moment of arrival and the moment where one hears if he or she can stay in Greece or not, is filled with what Rozakou (2017) and Hoag (2014) both describe as processes of bureaucracy. The hotspot creates time that is oriented towards a future that has not yet come and has no clear shapes and contours yet. The police paper exemplifies a first materialization of the border after it has been crossed. We have seen pieces of statecraft at work in the process of registration and identification, after which the state has enough information to let a border crosser belong to the hotspot. The newly arrived population that came across the Aegean in small and rickety boats have been transformed from an unknown border crosser in a boat, to a registered person living within the razor wired fences of the hotspot.

What we see with Shayma, Ali and the new arrivals is that the national or continental border they have crossed, has moved with them in the shape of closed gates, the police paper and the apparent need to pretend to be a deserving nationality. In this case Syrian. The border is and remains as deep as the sea. Political processes start once you enter the gates of the hotspot. Identification and registration processes determine what kind of border crosser one will be within the fences of the hotspot. It not

(31)

31 only determines your chances to board the ferry with the right papers, but it also shapes the contours of a future that is produced through bureaucracy. Identification processes determine your chances of participating in the circulation network of border crossers that hotspots are part of. These emotional and fearful moments after the first point of arrival already start to shape the future that has yet to come. The future that is oriented towards something that remains unknown for many living in the hotspot. The time that someone has to wait is always surrounded by the deep, blue Aegean. Even though the border has already been crossed, it still remains a border as long as the bureaucratic processes has not yet determined whether one can cross it to the mainland, or not.

(32)

32 Mural main entrance hotspot, Samos. Picture made by author, February 2017.

(33)

33

Chapter 2: As Tall As A Fence

The hotspot as a social border

“Me: Do you still feel like a human here?

Mani: No. Just a bit. With some people I feel like a human. With others I don’t feel like a human. From 16:00 o’clock to, when do you finish?

Me: 21:00 o’clock.

Mani: When I talk in English, get social, when I talk about the things, about life, about anything, I feel like a human. I feel like I am equal, I have my rights, I have everything. When it finishes, when I get back to my tent, I start feeling like I am not a human anymore.

Me: That moment is difficult, isn’t it? Also for me. When we walk out of the camp. Mani: And I will just be waiting there (in the gate or the medical area).

Me: And we walk to the car.

Mani: That’s the worst part of my day. Sometimes I prefer to go early, so that I would not have to say goodbye” (Interview Mani, March 2017).

“To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always” : an ethnographic story about the encounter between humanitarianism and border crossers in and around the hotspot on the Greek island Samos