URBAN EXILES. MIGRATION GOVERNANCE, ASYLUM, DISPLACEMENT AND SEGREGATION IN ATHENS.

The research examines the appearance of new figures of segregation and displacement following the turn in European migration governance. As new governmental instruments of containment, dispersal and concentration combine, new geographies of mobility and immobility (Tazzioli & Garelli, 2018) gradually reshape the spaces of the ‘urban diaspora’ described by Arbaci (2018) and new figures of global and urban displacement intertwine, reshaping cities, mobilities, and subjectivities (Roast et al., 2022). The thesis proceeds by reconstructing Athens' urban development, focusing on the urbanization process and the role played by internal and international migrations, going on to trace the gradual emergence of its social geography and segregation patterns. The research then focuses on the transformation of ‘border regimes’, reception policies, and displacement strategies after the so-called “refugee crisis”, and their direct and indirect spatial productivity on the wider process of urban change, suggesting an ongoing transformation of previously established residential patterns. Thus, it is suggested that the ongoing process of ‘campization’ of reception systems (Kourachanis, 2018b; Kreichauf, 2018) and the emergence of a segmented integration regime, mirroring the stratification of the Greek ‘mobility regime’, has altered previous patterns of segregation, combining extra-urban confinement and the institutional segregation of a growing population within the camp system with the radicalization of both “vertical” and “horizontal” segregation in specific districts and specific segments of the housing market, the underground short-term rental market. Moreover, the housing careers of these ‘migrantized’ subjects (Tazzioli & De Genova, 2023) appear to be marked by continuous and repeated evictions, removals, and relocations, i.e. a continuous cycle of endless displacement (Sossich, 2024). The thesis finally moves onto the case of Eleonas camp, the last refugee camp in Athens, evicted in 2022 in order to pursue a major regeneration project, despite the strong opposition of its residents. Reconstructing the dynamic of this conflict and addressing the role of the ethnographer within a “field” shaped by structural violence, the reflection moves on the connection between the “right to the city” and the exclusion from “citizenship” implied in the process of extra-urban confinement and the ongoing transformation of asylum in a new form of urban exile. Finally, the Eleonas case highlights how the analysis of dispersal and displacement technologies and trajectories can help shed light on new forms of segregation, but also on the ways in which urban and migration governance combine to promote new forms of accumulation through displacement.