The absurd encounter : solidarity in a squat for refugees in Athens

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Master’s Thesis for Social and Cultural Anthropology at the Graduate School of Social Sciences

The absurd encounter

Solidarity in a squat for refugees in Athens

Karin Arendsen 10874313

Amsterdam – January 23rd_{, 2017} Word count: 24.917 Supervisor: Dr. Kristine Krause

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Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. - Leonard Cohen

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Plagiarism Declaration

I hereby declare that this thesis meets the rules and regulations for fraud and plagiarism as set out by the Examination Committee of the MSc Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam. This thesis is entirely my own original work and all sources have been properly acknowledged.

Karin Arendsen 23-1-2017

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Abstract

This research examines the enactment of solidarity within a squat for refugees in Athens. In the autumn of 2015, a group of Athenian locals decided to squat a building to provide accommodation and support for refugees out of solidarity. The squat is situated in a neighbourhood that highly identifies with ‘radical’ left politics, and is based on the principles of autonomy, horizontality and self-organization. This study is based on three months of engaged, participatory observation in the summer of 2016. I theorize the squat as a form of contentious politics in which it challenges dominant authorities and searches for an alternative imagery of how to live together. By taking the spatial aspect into account the research shows how multiple conflicting trajectories are coming together in the squat. This focus on space underlines the importance for politics to always take the contextual specificity into account.

The research focuses on the enactment of solidarity in practice and the formed socialities inside the squat. It becomes clear that enacting solidarity can be done in multiple ways; how depends greatly on a constellation of trajectories that are coming together as well as arbitrary elements in the moment of enactment. I argue that there is not one single ‘right way’ of how to enact solidarity. It is rather through the acknowledgement and acceptance of complexity and uncertainty that relations and practices of solidarity can unfold.

Keywords: Greece, (contentious) politics, solidarity, refugees, complexity, space

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank all the participants of Notara 26. I am deeply grateful to them for welcoming me as openhearted as they did. Throughout my fieldwork so many of the participants have amazed and inspired me with their incredible hard work in search for a better and fairer world. In particular I would like to thank those participants that gave a great amount of time to discuss and share their thoughts with me. I would also especially like to thank Maria, who has been a great and cheerful host throughout my time in Athens. I will treasure the warm memories of our times at the balcony that were filled with excellent meals and wonderful music.

I would also greatly like to thank Kristine Krause, the best supervisor I could have wished for. She has been a great mentor, not only through her thoughtful insights and commentary, but as much as well through the always caring and warm support she provided me with.

Many thanks as well to my parents, Loes and Rolf, it has only been because of their support in multiple ways that I was able to go back to University again and to get to the point where I am right now. And then, last but not least, I would like to thank my sister Jolien, who has, with her excellent pep talks and insights, been of great help throughout writing this thesis.

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Introduction

On the morning of August 24th_{the Athenian sun woke me up early. When looking at my} phone I was surprised to see several missed calls from Jorgos, one of the members of the squat Notara 26. When calling back, the only thing Jorgos said was: ‘Fascist attack! Big fire! Come now!’ I started running to the squat, feeling nauseous because of the images that flashed through my mind, while fearing for the worst. When I arrived at the squat, there were many people standing in the street, all of them looking sadly to the building from which the ground and first floor were completely destroyed. Men were already inside; throwing all that was burned, which was everything, outside the window. I walked up to the first person I saw, almost unable to ask the question: ‘Is everybody safe?’ He nodded while looking at the building, and I sighed deeply.

Notara 26, a squat in central Athens that houses refugees out of the idea of solidarity, got attacked that night by people from a radical right-wing group. They had thrown a gas bomb followed by a Molotov cocktail into one of the windows. A huge fire started, especially since the cleaning supplies storage was right above where the bombs were thrown in. At the time of the attack, there were up to 120 residents sleeping inside the building. It had been a miracle that everybody survived, which was completely due to the guarding nightshifts held by the residents.

A chaotic and hectic week followed; the residents were evacuated to other squats in the neighbourhood, and the rebuilding of the squat started. Every day a general assembly was held in which they discussed the political answers Notara had to give towards the outside world, and the question of ‘how to go further’. A political statement was brought out by the squat, which told about the attack and how solidarity could not be terrorized. Following this statement a demonstration was held, in which more than 3000 people participated.

Many people from outside Notara offered their help; they contributed by supplying food, materials and assistance in the rebuilding of the squat. Although the attack does not stand on its own; during the last year there have been several attacks on other squats in Athens (Autonomous Steki, Zaimi, Analipsi, Kaniggos), it was the first attack that was focused on harming people physically, instead of scaring them.

After two weeks of reconstructing, the building was finished and the residents were able to come back. On September the 14th_{a press conference was hosted within the}

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squat. This conference did not only focus on the attack and Notara itself, but also on broader picture subjects. Namely the criminalization of solidarians and refugees by the state, and the notions of self-organization and solidarity.

With the returning of the residents, Notara continued its work: trying to build an inclusionary space, built upon the idea of solidarity. A highly challenging task, which turned out to be so much more complex than people could have ever thought of.

The Conjuncture

This research is about the squat ‘Notara 26’, named after the street on which it is situated in one of Athens central neighbourhoods. It is a 5-storey building that was originally used as a tax administration office owned by the Greek state. Before the building became occupied, it had been abandoned for many years. A big, grey building that seems quite ordinary from the outside. It is the banner on the front stating: ‘Refugees welcome’ that reveals the new destination of the building.

The building got squatted in September 2015 by a group of locals who stated to do so out of solidarity with refugees1_{. After the successful occupation, the building was} turned into a housing project for refugees, where the residents could find first needs like shelter, food, clothes, medical aid and company.

The occupation of Notara is happening at a time when Greece is dealing with tremendous challenges. First of all the country is still dealing with the hardships of austerity that influence the everyday lives of the Greek people dramatically. Many people got excluded from important democratic rights and social services (Vaiou & Kalandides 2016: 457). Next to this steep decline of the living standard, social inequalities increased, and neo-fascists groups emerged. On top of this economic and social recession, Greece became the epicentre of the so-called refugee crisis and has to deal with an extraordinary influx of people who fled their countries. According to UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, roughly 860.000 refugees have entered Greece by sea since 2015, while in 2016 (till November) more than 170.000 refugees arrived in Greece2_{. Most of them travelled}

to Athens to continue their journey further inwards Europe, but when the borders of

1_{I am aware that use of the term ‘refugee’ can be found problematic, both due to the specific}

regulatory legal context of the word, as well as its social and emotional charge, as it has been pointed out to perpetuate the commodification of migrants as devoid of agency in the modern

migration discourse. Although I do agree that we should find different terminology for people

who fled their countries, I choose to use the word since it was used as a key term in Notara.

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neighbouring countries closed most of the people got stuck in Greece. The country houses several refugee camps, in which in most of them the living conditions are extremely poor. The camps are far outside the city, they are crowded, the food is below standards, and the medical aid is not always sufficient. Next to this, the asylum procedures are a ridiculously slow process. People have to wait for months, in some cases even up to a year, before they receive the result of their procedure.

In Greece, as well as in the rest of Europe, one of the responses pertaining to this great influx of people has been the rapid growth of the radical right. Within its core the notion to protect Greek citizens against this influx of ‘foreigners’ (Cabot 2016: 158). Towards the end of 2015, throughout Europe, the public discourse towards the influx of refugees, notably shifted to the political right (Ataç et al. 2016: 528). Within this discourse solidarity became a practice under suspicion, and refugees were re-figured as potential ‘terrorists’ infiltrating the European space (ibid.). The opposing response was that from the summer of 2015 a wave of helping initiatives occurred. People showed their support in multiple different ways, and an enormous amount of people from all over the world travelled to Greece to come and help. Many of those who for that purpose came to Athens, found their way to Exarcheia, the neighbourhood where Notara is situated.

Exarcheia is a popular neighbourhood in the centre of the city that is highly identified with ‘radical’ left politics. Walking through the streets the association with these politics is easy to be made: the walls are covered with graffiti tags with the ‘A’ of anarchism and slogans like ‘Kill the money’, ‘Death to all fascists’, or ‘Squat the world’. When walking through the neighbourhood you can find numerous squats that are turned into housing projects or social centres. Yet, Notara 26 was the first squat in Athens that was specifically occupied for the sake of refugees. This was done out of the emergent and visible situation of thousands of people in urgent need for the accommodation that the Greek state was not covering. Soon after the occupation of Notara it became clear that more of these places were needed. By different groups of people other buildings got squatted, all of them serving the purpose of housing refugees. Within one year ten buildings got occupied (from which two already got closed), thereby providing an alternative for the state camps for up to 2000 people. The squats differ in size and the practice of political beliefs, yet they are all inspired by the idea of solidarity.

Although Exarcheia can be seen as an overall politically left orientated neighbourhood, there is a complex web of divisions between different left political

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stances at play. People identify themselves as anarchists, communists, libertarians or anti-authoritarians, while at the same time there are many people stating they do not want to be politically categorized at all. What all of these left groups or individuals aligns is the shared belief that ‘state oppression and the capitalist system should be fought’. There is a strong belief in self-organization and autonomy. When talking to the inhabitants of Exarcheia about their political ideas, people often refer to ‘we the movement’. In which ‘the movement’ stands for the sum of all the different left political beliefs. Many of the Exarcheia residents that I spoke to, articulated that it is not going well with the movement, with this referring to feelings of mistrust, disappointment and betrayal among members of the movement. This is something they connected to the ‘left’ political party Syriza who has been in power in the government since January 2015. Syriza is a party originating from the movement itself, but has moved, according to many inhabitants of Exarcheia, away from its left political agenda. What they do all agree upon is the loss of prospect. They stated that in 2015 there was a lot of anxiety, but there was also hope. Nowadays, people state to be neither afraid nor hopeful anymore.

This is the conjuncture that Notara is situated in: a highly political neighbourhood, in which different ‘crises’ and different groups of people, with different agendas are coming together.

The (im)possibility of Notara 26

Notara is based on the idea of solidarity. As the solidarians state: ‘we want to work with, instead of for refugees.’ The squat has a horizontal organization structure, with the aim to operate without any hierarchy. The most important tool for this are the consensus-based assemblies that are held twice a week. Notara is also a self-organized and autonomous place, meaning that it operates without any help of the state or NGO’s, but relies on donations from individuals.

This summer there were up to 130 residents (at that time the maximum capacity) living in Notara, native to many different countries like Iran, Afghanistan, Syria, Morocco, Palestine, Burkina Faso, Gabon, and Ivory Coast. People who all survived a dangerous fled of their countries of origin. The group of people, who do not live in the building but do participate, are called the solidarians3_{. Most of them are Greek, but there}

3_{A term that is used among many solidarity initiatives, which carries connotations with 1980-90’s}

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are also people from other European countries participating, most of them take part in the project for a short period of time.

The basic rules of Notara are that there are no discrimination, violence, weapons or drugs allowed inside the building. Moreover, the squat prioritizes in accommodating specific groups of people that are categorized as ‘more vulnerable’. Namely young single-parent families, unaccompanied minors, people who are sick, or lgbtq-people4_.

Because the building got occupied at a time where the European borders were still open, Notara was set up as a structure where people would only stay for a couple of days before they would continue their journey. Thousands of people have passed through the squat on their way to their final destination. Yet, as soon as the borders were closed, this structure changed radically, since it shifted from a short-term to a longer-term residence. As soon as people stayed longer, they started to form different expectations towards one another. The idea of residents and solidarians working together became more significant, as well did the political stances of the participants. The boredom of the residents in their liminal situation became more prominent, while simultaneously the personal issues that people had to deal with, as in every society, became visible. Suspicion towards the other, pregnancy, drug or alcohol abuse, domestic violence, or people getting sick, all occurred.

By starting Notara, the solidarians engaged themselves with a project that at first hand, almost seems to be near impossible to succeed. How would it be possible to deal with all the hectic and severe problems that occur in this building that was never meant to house so many people, without the guidance of professionals? Let alone, to do this in an illegal, autonomous, self-organized and open structure that aims to work without a form of hierarchy? The solidarians stress that they want to work together as equal humans, but the residents of Notara are highly dependent on the support that is given by the solidarians. In this complex situation, how then does solidarity become enacted? And within these asymmetrical relationships, what are the possibilities to find more equal grounds?

Theorizing the field

Due to restricted border regimes all over the world, for the last decade there has been an upsurge of political mobilizations by refugees, irregular migrants and solidarity activists fighting for the freedom of movement and fairer asylum procedures (Ataç et al. 2016:

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527). Notara can be seen in the light of this ‘new era of protest’ (ibid.: 528). Simultaneously Notara can be seen in the light of a social movement in Greece that has been struggling for political and social claims for decades now. Furthermore, Notara can also be considered as part of the Greek so-called ‘solidarity economy’ that emerged within the years of austerity. Within this specific context, it is an assemblage of different movements and struggles that are intertwined with each other. Throughout my fieldwork it became clear that the participants inside Notara, are not all necessarily identifying themselves with one and the same political struggle. Yet, in a broad sense you could say that all participants are struggling with and resisting against the failure of a neo-liberal system. Because of the failing system, they, or people around them, are hurt by crisis and, or, oppressed as minorities.

Because of this identification regarding different struggles inside Notara, the initiative resonates with the paradigm of contentious politics. Following Leitner, Sheppard and Sziarto, contentious politics here can be understood as: ‘concerted, counter-hegemonic, social and political action, in which differently positioned participants come together to challenge dominant systems of authority, in order to promote and enact alternative imaginaries’ (2008: 157). The social and political action of squatting and organizing Notara can be seen as contentious since it is set up by solidarians who act in the name of unaccepted claims, that fundamentally challenge authorities and is done by people who do not have access to state institutions (Aminzade et al. 2001: 3). Theorizing Notara in the light of contentious politics gives space to all those actors who might identify with different political struggles.

It is because of the specificity of the conjuncture that Notara is situated in, that the squat became a place in which differently positioned participants came together to promote and enact an alternative imaginary. As Massey states:

What gives a place its specificity is not some long internalized history but the fact that it is constructed out of a particular constellation of social relations, meeting and weaving together at a particular locus. It is, indeed, a meeting place. Instead then, of thinking of places as areas with boundaries around, they can be imagined as articulated moments in networks of social relations and understandings (1991: 28).

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Following the work of Massey, I will focus on Notara as a place where a network of social relations and understandings could arise within, and because of the specific ‘constellation of trajectories’. It is through the practices and relations that are formed inside the building that Notara is constructed and always developing as the place that it is. Thereby it is challenging a dominant system of authority. This is why it is so important to have a vision on politics that takes the spatial into account (2005: 148), in which politics are focused on the practices and relations that are formed inside a place. It is those practices and relations within Notara that are at the heart of the contentious political dynamics and that create new relationships between the different actors.

The notion of solidarity has, since the years of austerity in Greece, inspired people from multiple political trajectories and mobilized large groups of people (Rakopoulos 2015: 85). A solidarity economy, existing out of a variety of initiatives that are providing care and support, arose which filled the gap caused by the withdrawal of the state in the social field (Rakopoulos 2016: 143). In Greece, solidarity, a notion that has always been central to radical left, social and political movements (Featherstone 2012: 5), became part of the everyday vocabulary (Rozakou 2016: 187) and can be seen as a ‘bridge-concept that links diverse networks of people and sometimes contradictionary meanings in the context of anti-austerity mobilisation’ (Rakopoulos 2016: 142).

Within the squat the notion of solidarity became the discourse of how to act politically. Yet, as became quickly clear when I entered my field, and following existing theories about solidarity, solidarity is not a bounded but rather fluid concept. A concept in which multiple understandings of what solidarity entails and how to enact it exist. With the idea of working with, instead of for refugees, the anti-hierarchical aspect of Notara is strongly intertwined with the idea of solidarity. It is about working together, and ‘incorporating refugees into significant forms of social interaction’ (Rozakou 2016: 186).

As many scholars stress (Rozakou 2016, Rakopoulos 2016, Cabot 2016) solidarity is a process of active sociality. Drawing on Rakopoulos, sociality can be understood as ‘the social life pertaining to the formation of groups in it self, as well as the social life developing within them’ (ibid.). It is a processual notion in which ‘forms of sociality draw on existing patterns of relatedness, and at the same time broaden them’ (Rozakou 2016a: 186) Through the engagement of Notara’s participants a constantly changing and developing solidarity group is created. In line with Massey’s idea of how politics should

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focus on relations and practices, the political is produced through the active sociality of Notara’s participants (Rakopoulos 2016: 145).

The intention of this thesis is not to identify what solidarity exactly entails, but rather to focus on the active sociality and different enactments of solidarity and the challenges that appear within Notara as a site of contention in search for an alternative imagery. With this approach I aim to step away from usual critiques on humanitarianism that stressed the unequal power dynamics in relations of giving and receiving help (Ticktin 2014: 279). I rather focus on the search and hard work of solidarians in dealing with certain dynamics. As Malkki states:

People who are refugees can also find themselves quite quickly rising to a floating world either beyond or above politics, and beyond or above history, a world in which they are simply "victims." It is this floating world without the gravities of history and politics that can ultimately become a deeply dehumanizing environment for refugees, even as it shelters (1995: 518).

This thesis is concerned with showing how the solidarians of Notara try to work together with refugees, as actors in their own political lives that try to overcome the floating and dehumanizing world refugees can find themselves in.

The equality-framework of Jacques Rancière

When thinking about Notara and the question of creating equality, I find Jacques Rancière’s framework of radical equality helpful. In this framework Rancière suggests making a distinction between what he calls the police and democratic politics. What generally goes by the name of politics is what Rancière calls the police: ‘a set of procedures whereby the aggregation and consent of collectivities is achieved, the organization of powers, the distribution of places, and roles, and the systems for legitimizing this distribution’ (1999: 28). Policing is about the distribution of social goods to people, and the practice of social order. Societies are arranged around the idea of policing; an order is constructed that is based on social hierarchies. There are people who make the decisions and there are people whom they are made for. It is the decision-makers who govern the lives of others, who Rancière calls ‘the part that has no part’ (May 2005: 45). Within this policing, there can only exist a passive form of equality: equality as something that is

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distributed to the people. Within policing, equality is something that is put at the end of the political process; it is through an existing order of governance, that equality is distributed, which is causing inequality (May 2005: 47).

The opposite of the police is what Rancière calls Democratic politics: events that put equality at the beginning, instead of the end of the process. In democratic politics people claim equality that has not been distributed by the police, and by doing so they take equality as the presupposition of politics (ibid.: 43). Democratic politics do not accept the categorization made by the police that allot certain people with rights while others are left out. It challenges political institutions in name of those that remain outside the benefits of the distribution of passive equality (ibid.: 3). Instead, democratic politics are based upon an active equality (ibid.: 40) that puts the traditional mechanisms of the police into question.

This active equality is, according to Rancière, based on the acknowledgement of the equality of intelligence. By this he means that everybody has the ability to talk and reason with each other, and everybody is able to construct meaningful lives upon the foundations of our reasoning and our reflection. Although intellectual skills differ, we are all capable of taking account of the world around us.

With this framework in mind, Notara can be seen as a form of democratic politics: it has put equality at the beginning of the process. Equality is not something distributed to the participants, but it is a presupposition that is acted from. The squat is unwilling to accept the distribution of (in)equality towards refugees from the state. However, simultaneously Notara can be seen as a form of policing, since there are social goods distributed from the solidarians towards the residents. I wonder, with the complexity Notara is situated in, what are the possibilities to achieve an active equality? If we think of politics as not just a set of rules and rights that people receive, but rather as something that people do, is then through this doing, a more equal ground created?

Methodology, argument, and structure

My choice for Notara as my research-field was the result of my deep interest, and personal belief in the importance of searching for new ways and structures of living together. To not only protest against the exclusion of people from certain rights, but to try to create new structures together, in which we can build a more inclusionary society in our complex, globalized and migratory world.

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Quickly after I started participating in Notara, I realized that my political beliefs and my role as a researcher are fundamentally intertwined. My sympathy for the search of the solidarians to find alternatives of how to include refugees in society was present from the beginning. Low defines engaged anthropology as:

Those activities that grow out of a commitment to the informants and communities with whom anthropologists work and a values-based stance that anthropological research respect the dignity and rights of all people and have a beneficent effect on the promotion of social justice (Low 2011: 390).

I started participating in the daily life of the squat, in which I embodied the practices, which include the challenges, the responsibilities and the doubts within this work. During my time in the field, I started perceiving myself as ‘part of the movement’, and I have always recognized this research as a dialogical one. Meaning that I, together with my informants, search for a better understanding of the field. This was also due to the high awareness among many of the solidarians regarding their practices, and the paradoxes and inconsistencies that might lay within their work. As Osterweil suggests:

Since a good deal of work done by social movements can be considered theoretical, analytical, and critical -mirroring many academic practices and values- the divide between academia and activism blurs, creating a novel space for rethinking the boundaries of engaged or political anthropology, in turn broadening our view of efficacious political action (2013: 600).

Regularly, it were my informants who would point out the nuances and the questions that they had regarding their actions.

Being engaged to this extent made that I perceived my double-role as a researcher and a solidarian as a precarious one. Notara is a place where only few researchers are let in due to suspicion towards the motivations of the researcher. I have had numerous ethical doubts about my part of bringing the story of this illegal structure into public. Notara is for a great part build on the notion of trust and this is why I clearly felt in the beginning that people first needed to trust me as a solidarian. Due to the issue

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of trust I chose to not conduct any interviews at the start of my fieldwork. Yet, shortly after I started interviewing my informants the attack at the squat happened, which made everybody focussed (including me) on the process of rebuilding the squat. Throughout my fieldwork I constantly had the feeling that I was walking on a thin line of trust, where I often wondered to what extent I was using the occurred complex situations just for the sake of my research. I have been in situations where people expressed feelings of insecurity about telling me personal stories in which they had forgotten about my role as a researcher. This made that I not only made sure to not use their stories when they asked me to do so, but simultaneously regularly reminded people that I was participating in Notara as both a solidarian and a researcher. Next to my ethical considerations, the hectic of the everyday life, especially the period after the attack, made that sometimes even I forgot my role as a researcher.

This research relies on three months of intensive participatory observation within Notara. Within these three months, I have had countless informal conversations with the participants of Notara. During my days at the squat I would always make short field notes, or voice recordings, that I would work out to extensive field notes each following morning. Furthermore I have conducted four long in-depth interviews with Greek solidarians that were active in Notara. Once I returned home I have analysed my data through coding my notes and interviews, and broke them down into thematic sections. Within these collections of themes, I made several more rounds of coding in which I identified patterns and contradicting meanings within the themes. Throughout the writing of this thesis I have constantly moved back and forward between my ethnographic material and my analysis about it.

During my fieldwork I have focused on the practices and relations inside the building. Also, initially I decided to focus more on the group of solidarians than on the residents. This was due to my fear of giving the residents the feeling that participation in my research was mandatory, because they were staying in Notara; I did not want to add any interrogation to their situation. However, during my fieldwork it turned out that many residents were very willing to talk about Notara. The informal conversations I have had with the residents are of great value to this research.

Due to time and language challenges, there might be two main shortfalls within this research. First of all, I have not been focussing on how Notara is perceived outside the building. I have not focused on different discourses or opinions that exist within the media, or the city or the neighbourhood concerning the squat. I chose not to do so, since

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within the given time, I reckoned I needed all of it to get a deep understanding of the dynamics of the political and social struggle within the building. However, I realise that the present discourses or understandings of the squat outside the building might have affected the process inside the building.

The language barrier that I faced with my informants caused another shortfall; I do not speak any Greek, Persian, Arabic or French (the common languages of the participants). All my conversations were in English, and although many solidarians as well as some of the residents spoke English, I know that some of my conversations would have been more nuanced or in-depth if I would have spoken their languages.

However, despite these shortages this thesis will give an understanding of the challenges and antagonisms that the production of a solidarity-place carries inside. I shed light on a shifting valuation between political beliefs and giving help within a solidarity structure. This thesis builds upon the established research regarding solidarity in which I aim to contribute through my focus on space and the active sociality that happens within a solidarity group. This focus shows the contextual specificity and the complexity of the everyday practices and relations within enacting solidarity.

In this thesis I will argue that solidarity can become enacted in multiple ways. Enacting solidarity asks for a constant negotiation and remaking of political frameworks, while at the same time is always led by the question: what works the best in this particular moment? It shows the hard work of enacting solidarity in which there is never one ‘right way’ of acting. The alternative imagery that Notara wants to enact is built on the premise of complexity. It is not about dissolving power structures, antagonisms or uncertainty, but about the awareness of certain structures and working with and through them. At the same time my thesis can be read as an argumentation for the work of those who have the courage to take responsibility for the complex world around them.

To explicate my argument I will in the first chapter have a more in-depth look at the specificity of Notara as a place in which multiple trajectories are coming together. In the following chapter I demonstrate how solidarity becomes enacted in multiple ways. Which shows the shifting valuation within practices from which the enactment greatly depends on arbitrary elements in the specific moment. Having pointed out the ‘messiness’ of enacting solidarity, in the third chapter I will build on the reflexivity of the Greek solidarians and show how they consider their acting. I will do so by the premises of experimentation, negotiation and trust. I will complete this thesis with an over-all conclusion.

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Chapter 1 Thrown together

It is a Saturday evening and I am at a party that is organized by Notara. It is a nice, relaxed day; we dance, we drink, we eat, we laugh. A theatre play and a documentary are shown, both made by residents of the squat. People are queuing to get a henna tattoo made by one of the residents as well. It is one of those days where everything feels just normal and easy. Later that night Jorgos, an older solidarian with whom I had become good friends, asks me to join him to have a quick look at a punk band that is playing at the University, and I decide to join.

When we arrive, we notice a big garbage container in flames in front of the University. Jorgos tells me there is a fight going on between the police and Exarcheia residents, and he wants to take a closer look before we go see the band. We walk up the street and I see policemen standing in line at the end. Young people are watching and walking around. Most of them have tied their t-shirt over their noses and mouths, while keeping Molotov cocktails made from small beer bottles in their hands. My friend tells me that if the police come we might have to run. We walk closer to the fight and I hear the loud explosions coming from the Molotovs. The burning smell gets heavier, my eyes start to tear, and my skin starts to burn. Before I realize we stand in the middle of the fight. We are in the middle of a group of young, nervous men who all wait for the right time to throw their Molotovs. Some of them wear gasmasks and I realize the convenience of these masks since my face is burning extremely and the smell is incredible intense. Behind burning containers on both sides of the street I see policemen standing in lines. Between the fires stand the young men that are throwing the Molotov into the side streets. Big bangs and fireworks surround us.

There I stand in my short summer dress, my mojito cocktail still in one hand, and my henna tattoo still drying up. What hits me most is the absurdity of this quick change of scenery; these completely different worlds, coming together, here in Exarcheia.

We leave the scenery and walk away to see the band. The instruments are set-up outside the University building, young people gather around. The band starts playing and loud punk music fills the square. Girls are wearing black ripped clothes and army boots, and with their shaved heads, they softly bang their heads to the music. A couple of men in the middle of the crowd, jump, push and scream. I look at my friend and he asks: ‘You

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were not scared right?’ When I tell him I was not, he laughs and kisses both of his biceps. A new song starts and everybody shouts out: ‘Outside is the fight, but here is the music! Anti, anti, anti-fascists!’ When the band is finished we walk back. The garbage container is still on fire and the fight is still going on. I step on the motorbike and we drive back to Notara’s party where the Arabic music is playing. My henna tattoo finally dried.

Space

It is in Exarcheia that through the conjuncture, a surprising mix of people, with different cultural backgrounds and political agendas are physically coming together. As Massey tells us, ‘it is the chance of space that might set us down next to the unexpected neighbour’ (2005: 151). As evident as it may sound, it is within space that the encounter happens, and that is why it particularly poses the question of our living together. Drawing on the work of Massey, space can be conceptualised by three propositions. Firstly, space can be understood as a product of practices, relations, connections and disconnections. Secondly, space is the dimension of multiplicity and thirdly, space is always in process: it is an on-going production (2006: 90). Massey argues that we should thus not perceive space as a continuous surface, as a landscape out there that we act upon, but rather as a ‘constellation of un-going trajectories’ (ibid.: 92).

When the concept space is viewed this way, there are two important aspects that need to be highlighted. Firstly, when space is multiple trajectories that are simultaneously always moving on, changing and becoming, space is inherently imbued with time. Time and space need to be thought together, as they are necessary to each other; without time no change, and without space no simultaneity of on-going trajectories (ibid.). Secondly, we can step away from the distinction that is often made between place and space. Place, for some connected to notions of the everyday, to real and valued practices, may give an idea of a coherent or even closed place. As if space is the domain of the meaningful, the everyday and the lived, while space would be the outside of place, the not lived place (Massey 2005: 6). When we refuse this distinction, we can see that space is in place, and place is in space. Both space and place are simultaneously, multiple processes that are constantly reproduced. When we think then of place as an ever-shifting constellation of trajectories, it poses the question of our throwntogetherness (ibid: 151). In Exarcheia worlds are thrown together: Molotov and henna tattoos, Greek punk music and Arabic singers, fighting and mojito’s, wanting to help and being a spectator. It is a multiplicity of interconnected and never-finished stories.

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With the occupation of Notara 26, the building became an intersection within Exarcheia, where the encounter of these multiple trajectories got a more concentrated character. It is the walls of Notara 26 that give shelter to its people, and the building became a place produced by new socialities and practices. Buildings stabilize social life. They give structure to social institutions, durability to social networks and persistence to behavior patterns (Gieryn 2005: 35). Within it’s walls, Notara is not a place that was already there, a place collectively achieved from the beginning, but made and remade by the relations and practices happening inside. It is within space and time that Notara is moving, changing and becoming. ‘Place then, in other words does change us, not through some visceral belonging but through the practicing of place, the negotiation of intersecting trajectories; place as an arena where negotiation is forced upon us’ (Massey 2005: 154). Considering Notara as an arena where the negotiation is forced upon us, what are these intersecting trajectories and how do they negotiate within space and time?

This chapter discusses the encountering trajectories of the participants and politics within Notara. I will first give a short insight in the already existing politics in the neighbourhood, before drawing light on the participants, their agendas and their relations. I will end with describing the values of autonomy, self-organization and openness in the squat, which I will relate to the concept of autonomous geographies.

Politics in Exarcheia

It was at one of my first days in Notara when I was chatting with some of the solidarians, that Angelos, a young and cheerful solidarian, asked me: ‘What are your political beliefs Karin? Are you an anarchist, anti-authoritarian, communist, or libertarian?’ I told him I was not sure about that, but that I do belief in a bottom-up movement. ‘So then you are a libertarian’, Angelos concluded satisfied while the others nodded. Everything in Exarcheia seemed to be about politics: from daily conversations and street walls covered with political posters, to the weekly political gatherings and events, in the form of festivals and demonstrations.

Exarcheia is strongly identified with radical left politics and riots. Since the post-dictorial regime, Greece has been dealing with riots of great frequency and Exarcheia is frequently portrayed as the neighbourhood concentrating the majority of these riots (Vradis 2012: 88). It is beyond the scope of this thesis to go deeply into the history and the public discourse about the neighbourhood, but it is clear that riots, anarchism and violence have played, and still play, a big role within the neighbourhood. The

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anti-dictatorial student uprising of 1973 that took place at the Polytechnic University in Exarcheia has been a landmark in this. It was the first time that public buildings were occupied and became the centers of social and political mass protest. The university ‘became the epicenter of democratic self-organization and had a nationwide impact, which showed new forms of organization and action’ (Hoogenhuijze et al.: 67). Some of the commemorations of the 1973 protest turned into riots themselves, while huge riots also erupted after killings by the police (1985, 2008) and during police operations that led to mass and often violent protests (Vradis, 2012: 88).

During my stay in Exarcheia there were multiple clashes between the police and residents, to which the residents of the neighbourhood refer as ‘just normal’. Residents also reckon it to be normal and even something to be proud of, that the police, while guarding several outlines of the neighbourhood 24/7, normally do not enter the heart of the neighbourhood. In general, my Greek informants articulated feelings of pride about ‘their’ neighbourhood in which they referred to Exarcheia being a symbol of resistance, freedom, and a neighbourhood of ‘the community itself’.

When discussing the role of anarchism with Exarcheia residents, many of them did not refer to a specific political system but rather to certain values like respect and freedom. The solidarians in Notara identifying themselves as anarchists, articulated more clearly their beliefs in a stateless society. What they also referred to was how anarchism within Greece has so far been too much of an ideology with an ‘inward looking perspective’. According to them anarchists have to ‘start working together with society to change the world from within.’ They related this creation from within to the struggle of refugees as well. According to the solidarians, it is in this struggle that people from varying left political ideas came together to resist against the oppression of refugees. They thought of this struggle as one of resistance and creation, in which they had to overcome the different divisions within the political left field. This is why the solidarians consider Notara much more as a political initiative originating from the broader movement, rather than an anarchist squat. They stressed that the political issues within this struggle are about shaping everyday life together. As Giorgios, an always friendly solidarian who identifies himself as a communist, stated:

Giorgios: I think a mistake many times made is that we (the solidarians) believe that the political is always kind of high-level assemblies where you talk about the big issues of life and demonstrations. But you know,

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every aspect of our life is politics. Because every aspect of our life is affected by how society is, how economy is, how politics are. So to struggle, in our struggle for socialism or communism or anarchism or whatever your idea is, we struggle for our likes, for a better life. We struggle for those goals because we believe, we understand, that to make our lives better we need this different kind of organization of society. But it is something that we can only do together.

The solidarians’ understanding of what Notara mainly is about is in line with the idea of contentious politics. For them it is even so about challenging systems of authority in which different positioned participants come together. However, the solidarians might emphasize the importance of this alternative imagery themselves, enacting it can only be done together with others. As Giorgios’ quote explains: in order to have a better life, the solidarians are convinced they need a different organization of society, but it is something that can only be done together. Consequently, in the case of Notara it can only be done together with the refugees. Connecting Giorgios’ understanding to the framework of Rancière shows the ambivalence of Notara regarding the idea of active equality. The residents have not first claimed equality themselves in which the solidarians stand alongside with them, rather the solidarians created a space with the aim for equality to which refugees were invited.

In the summer of 2015, within Exarcheia an informal network of self-organised squats and social kitchens that were focused on the support of refugees arose. The kitchens provided meals for squats without a well-functioning kitchen (like Notara) and were run by both Greek and foreign volunteers. The contact between the squats and kitchens was based on informality, something seen by Rakopoulos as an important premise of the idea of solidarity (2015), which will be further discussed in the second chapter. There was no structured communication, to regulate and organise supplies. It frequently occurred that participants of the squats and kitchens would just run into each other to share information. After the attack at Notara however, the contact between some of the squats intensified, and a weekly assembly to which all the squats specifically were invited, started.

It is not a coincidence that Notara is situated in Exarcheia: it is the specific existing political trajectories in which feelings of being a ‘neighbourhood of the community’ and ‘changing the world from within’ that made solidarians take action.

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Within the action of the solidarians lies a recognition that space is continuously made through practices and relations, and that it is therefore up to ourselves to take responsibility for the world around us.

The participants and their agendas

Although Notara started with a great amount participating solidarians, throughout the year this group declined. Albeit there still might be a big group of solidarians feeling greatly connected to the squat, this summer there was a group of approximately 20 solidarians that participated physically and frequently in keeping Notara running. It was a diverse group: men, women, young, old, unemployed and employed. Most of them were already politically active before joining Notara. Some of the solidarians joined Notara because they wanted to help refugees, others had (as described above) broader political motivations to do so.

Throughout my fieldwork it became clear that the solidarians relate to the squat in different ways. Many of them would constantly stress how tired they were; being involved in this structure, with all its needs and questions, asked a lot from them. One of the solidarians told me that it felt as if she was living two parallel lives. One ‘normal life’, and one ‘Notara life’. Yet, at the same time, they all stressed how attached they were to the building and its residents. They would often just pass by to chat and drink a coffee. They underlined the importance of the personal relationships with each other and Notara’s residents. Despite the attachment of the solidarians to the squat and their idea of living together, they also stressed that Notara is and should be a temporary place; a transit place from which the residents can start looking out for better opportunities to build up their own lives again in society.

When I started participating in Notara, many of the residents were already staying at the squat for months. Yet, every week people left and new people arrived. The acceptance of new people emerged in an informal way too: people could just walk into the building, ask for a place and the present solidarians would discuss with each other if the squat was able to offer housing.

It is early in the afternoon and I am the only solidarian at the squat, when a Syrian man walks in who asks for a place to stay for him and his son. I knew a family left this morning, so I guess we might have a place for them. I ask the man to stay while I wait for another solidarian to discuss this with. An hour later, Jorgos walks in and I tell him about the situation of the man. Jorgos simply states that if we have

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place, they are welcome, so I decide to tell the man the good news. When I walk up to him, I see there is another man sitting next to him, who tells me he is also from Syria and looking for a place for him, his two daughters and his diseased wife. I do not know what to do, it feels so unfair that the first man coming in just a little earlier gets to move in while the second man and his family might need it even more. The second man tells me again how bad his situation is, how he has been searching for a place for days now. How his family lives on the street. He tries to convince me, and I tell him I understand, although I probably do not. Meanwhile, the other man gets a bit anxious about his own place in the squat. Both men start discussing why they need the place. There I stand, with these two men in front of me begging for a place, and me being in control, the one deciding who can stay and who cannot. It feels so arbitrary and so unfair. I tell the man that came first to get his son and the other man to come back later, to see what we can do then.

This way of deciding who can stay and who cannot, not only shows the arbitrariness of who will be included within the squat (if there had been another solidarian than me, he or she might have decided differently), but simultaneously how the informal and ad hoc organization of the squat is not necessarily linked to operating without hierarchy. On the contrary: I was in power to decide about the situation of these men.

Time in the squat for most of the residents passed by in boredom, awaiting their asylum procedure results. ‘I’m getting crazy, every day is the same, and I cannot do anything’, many of the residents would tell me. This state of being can be compared to the state of ‘waithood’ that Honwana (2012:20) describes: a period of suspension in which young people are struggling with unemployment and building a sustainable livelihood due to failing governance, or social and political instability. Similar to the situation described by Honwana is the lack of opportunities of Notara’s residents because of a break-down in the socio-economic system. By this they do not have an opportunity to gain a position of independence either: buy a house, support relatives, gain social recognition as adults. A state of being where people are ‘pushed out of the system and are forced to survive on the margins of society due to state control’ (ibid.: 23). This period of waithood may be a short interruption but can also be an extended period and does not necessarily have to involve inactive waiting. Despite the challenges, agency and creativity can be used to come to new forms of being and interacting with society (ibid. 20). The state of waithood accounts for a multiplicity of experiences of people and the strategies they use to survive. This multiplicity of experiences was also visible in Notara: residents were coping with the situation differently. Some residents got,

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as the solidarians would call it, institutionalized: they did not make any effort to extent their lives outside of the building. At the same time there were residents who did try to find opportunities to do so. Searching for creative possibilities to leave the country, to go to school, to find a job, or to set-up contacts in the city.

Who also experienced intense feelings of boredom where the big number of children inside Notara. Their presence greatly affected the squat as they would constantly play, fight, scream and run through the building, searching for attention and distraction. In July, volunteers organized a summer school, which was a relief to everybody: the children were excited to have a place where they could run and play outside with others, and they were taught classes such as Greek and English language. Some of the children were able to register for the public school in September, but many of them were too young, too old, or their parents did not know how to, or want to register their child.

Living in a building with so many people, with different cultural backgrounds, causes a lot of frustration and complaints. Some of the residents had a small private room for their family, others had to share a room or even had to use a ‘room’ marked by sheets hanging from the ceiling. An old tax office is not built to house 130 people: it was noisy and messy, mostly due to the complete lack of personal space. Between the different cultural groups a lot of suspicion, prejudice, gossip, and exclusion was at play. Things like ‘all Iranian are fascists’, or ‘Syrians always take too much’, or ‘Arabs are only nice to you when you speak their language’ are only a few examples of what people told me. Yet, despite all this, many residents got attached to Notara, they built routines, and relationships within the building, and some of them referred to Notara as their temporary home. This notion of ‘being at home’ became especially clear when solidarians would visit the residents in their rooms, who then actually became the hosts of their ‘home’.

I walk up the stairs to the 5thth_{floor, but as soon as I am on the 4}th_{, one of the residents opens her door,} and shouts cheerful: ‘Good morning Karin, come inside, it is coffee time!’ ‘Good morning Mariam!’ I shout back, I laugh to her, walk into her cosy and neat room, and take a seat at her bed. Jana, the next-door neighbour brings in the coffee and colourful plastic cups, while Ahmen and his son Yasin, the neighbours from the other side also walk in. The doors to the balcony are always wide open, and the wind brings us a pleasant breeze. Mariam’s favourite Arabic singer is playing loudly from her mobile phone and Miriam starts singing and dancing along. We yell and shout and laugh all together.

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While visiting residents in their rooms, the roles were turned. Solidarians became guests in spaces led by the (cultural) habits of its resident. They were the ones in control and the solidarians had to adjust to their music, drinks, food, jokes and rules.

Almost every day people coming from other countries would visit Notara, stating they wanted to help, and ‘see the situation with their own eyes’. Almost all of them stayed for a short-term period, even though almost all expressed their wish to stay longer. Some of them collected money to buy supplies for the squat, others helped with physical labour in the building. The Greek solidarians stated to be very happy with the help from abroad, however it was not always clear if and where help was needed. Most of the people would help with short practical tasks or they would play with the children. Some helpers seemed disappointed that there was not always a clear or visible need in the squat.

These different people coming together in Notara with their own motivations to be there, led to wonderful and sometimes absurd encounters. The informal and open character of the structure gave space to these encounters and new socialities could arise. Yet, it also caused that cooperation was sometimes missing and ineffective systems could develop easily. An example of this was the food situation inside Notara. Food was provided by social kitchens, where often international people cooked and assisted.

I sit in front of the door of Notara, when Alexia walks out of the door with an old shopping cart. Two of the residents walk behind her, both carrying big plastic trash bags. Both the cart and the bags are full of small containers that are filled with the food that was already brought in a few days ago. They walk up to the trash bin at the opposite of the street while throwing all the food away. When they return to the front door, one of the residents looks at me and says: ‘It was pasta again, but we have had pasta for weeks now, and we do not like pasta.’

Without denying the great amount of work that all the social kitchens have contributed to the squats in Exarcheia, and still do, the fact that so much food cooked by people who came all the way to Athens with the aim of helping refugees, was thrown away, shows the absurdity of the situation. The kitchens often asked the refugees for help, but as the squats aim to work without hierarchy, none of the residents was obligated to do so and little of them actually did. Some of Notara’s residents stated that they wanted to help, but were afraid of the language barrier that they would experience in the kitchens. For the

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international solidarians working in the kitchens was a fun and practical task, especially since it was not always clear where else their support would come in helpful.

Another example of the difficulty of the throwntogetherness of different groups, agendas and cultural backgrounds, is the question on how to deal with specific personal issues of the residents. There was often a lack of time, communication, knowledge, and cultural understandings for dealing with certain issues.

When I arrive at the squat, some female residents and solidarians are standing at the reception. It turns out that one of the residents told the solidarians her husband has been treating her with violence for a long time. The solidarians already had doubts about the situation as they explain to me, and together with the woman they decide that her husband will be asked to leave the squat. Despite her agreement with this decision, the woman still seems to have doubts. Does she want to send her husband to a camp, or let him sleep on the street? They have two young children. ‘You are free now, leave that man’, one of the solidarians says, trying to cheer her up. Another female resident walks up to the woman and takes her apart. She thinks that it would be a very bad decision for the family, to make the husband leave. The uncertainty in the eyes of the woman is obvious, but she cannot go back anymore, since her husband is already asked to leave.

The example shows the complexity of the coming together of trajectories. The question of spousal abuse and how to deal with that is in itself already a question even professionals find complex to answer, let alone in this specific situation of a family that fled their country together and the question of what will happen if they now would get separated on the way. Moreover, the complexity lies in the fact that solidarians are being approached as advisors, despite the fact that they may have different cultural understandings of certain issues than the residents themselves. Dealing with heavy issues, such as spousal abuse, within this hectic and informal structure, decisions are not systematically thought through but decided on the spot.

The complexity of the situation not only lies in the constant and highly complicated situations, but simultaneously in the insecurity of living in an illegal structure with the chance of an eviction by the police or a political attack. Not all the residents were aware that Notara was an illegal structure. Translators told me that it is difficult to explain this, since these kind of structures are quite unknown in some of the cultures of the residents. An example that people would always refer to is that there does not even exist a word for ‘squat’ in the Arabic language.

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A female resident walks down from the stairs and wants to go outside. ‘You should not go outside right now’, one of the solidarians tells her. ‘There have been squats evacuated, and we do not know what will happen to ours. There might be police outside’. A translator translates the words for the woman. She looks surprised, asking: ‘But is that dangerous for me?’ ‘Yes it might be, and for me as well’, the solidarian replies. ‘So Notara is not from the state?’ the woman asks. ‘No, we are not, not at all’, the solidarian answers. ‘So then we are like a NGO?’ the woman asks. ‘Well’, the solidarian sighs deeply, ‘not really…’

While the solidarians were aware of the risks of being an illegal structure, many residents did not seem to know what the squat was about exactly. It shows the ambivalence of the initiative, as the squat is resisting against the state while simultaneously fulfilling state functions.

As the examples show, in Notara there is a throwntogetherness of people who often do not even know if they understand each other or not, but despite that are still acting together. It became clear in this paragraph that through Notara’s aim to be an inclusionary space, new socialities are arising. Yet within the specific coming together of people that Notara constitutes ‘the challenge of our on-going, ordinary, constitutive interrelatedness, and our collective implication in the outcomes of that interrelatedness’ (Massey 2006: 94) also becomes recognizable.

Notara as an autonomous geography

As Notara is based on the political ideals of autonomy, self-organization and being an open place, squatting the building can be understood as a political process that materializes the social order, which it seeks to enact (Vasudevan 2016: 39). Through the occupation these ideals are brought into practices that have at aim to create an alternative imagery of how to live together. However, autonomy, self-organization and being an open place do not have clear-cut meanings but are fluid, highly intertwined, and overlapping with each other. The Greek solidarians used these notions in different ways, although their articulations always related to on the one side operating without any connection to the state or NGO’s, and on the other side to collective decision-making processes. To understand what is meant by an autonomous, self-organized and open place I will draw on the work of Pickerill and Chatterton, who use the concept of autonomous geographies: ‘those spaces where people desire to constitute non-capitalist,

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egalitarian and solidaristic forms of political, social, and economic organization through a combination of resistance and creation’ (2006: 730).

According to Notara’s solidarians the capitalist system and the state, causers of inequality, war and poverty, needed to be fought. They refused to cooperate with any other institution for three reasons: firstly they said, you never know their true source of money, secondly, institutions are mostly build on hierarchical structures, and thirdly, institutions would often just want to cooperate to advertise with their names. As one of the solidarians said: ‘It is not that we are completely against NGO’s, some of them do very good work, the thing is that we believe in operating beyond the system. To have as less influence of the capitalist system as possible.’ At the same time the solidarians were all aware that Notara was not only still captured in the capitalist system, but that they were also helping the residents to get their papers to become part of the capitalist system. However, this was not something they reckoned to be conflicting with their ideals. They stressed that since this is the reality we all live in, it is important for anybody to have papers at this moment.

Autonomous geographies are based on consensus-based decision-making processes; there are no (official) leaders. In Notara the most important tool for this is the use of general assemblies. On Fridays there was an assembly with both solidarians and residents, on Tuesdays there was an assembly for solidarians. The assemblies would (even for Greek standards) always start much later than agreed. As if it was something that was deeply anchored within the ritual of the assembly. Whoever wanted to talk during the meetings could do so in his or her own language. As soon as something was said, the wonderful process of translation would start, and you could almost see the words move through the space, from Persian, to Greek, to English, to French, to Arabic. During the assemblies information was shared, and problems would come to the table. The assemblies were always long, slow and tiring, where every topic was discussed extensively before a decision was made. The dynamics of the assemblies constantly changed, because of the topics or the number of people present. However, the repetitive topics were food, building security, child caretaking, and theft of supplies.

Evidently, situations constantly occurred in which immediate decision-making was needed. If so, solidarians would always try to get more people involved, and first discuss the issue with those who were present at the squat at that time. The idea of sharing information about what was going on in the squat was highly important. On arrival at the squat, oftentimes someone would give me an update about current issues in

The absurd encounter : solidarity in a squat for refugees in Athens