The ‘New Humanitarians’: Vernacular aid in Greece

Adi Maya

doi:10.21153/thl2022art1625

Authors

Adi Maya

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.21153/thl2022art1625

Keywords:

refugee, Greece, Europe, migration

Abstract

Since 2015, the ’refugee crisis’ in Greece has turned the Eastern Mediterranean migration route into one of the main entry points to Europe. In response, a grassroots solidarity movement has emerged in the Aegean islands that has become instrumental for boat rescue at sea, and for camp service provision. These local and international volunteers, as well as refugees, identify as ‘New Humanitarians’. This paper presents the emic aspects of the ‘New Humanitarians’, and focuses on vernacular actors and how they challenge the humanitarian landscape in Greece by examining their principles, practices, and discourse.

A key finding is that the ‘New Humanitarian’ principles that they model revisit the existing ones—i.e. solidarity, hospitality, equality, and agency. Other findings show that the ‘New Humanitarians’ are reproducing governing technologies imposed by the government and other agencies. They do so while trying to contest mainstream humanitarianism and pleading for much-needed change in the European border regime and refugee management systems.

Metrics

Metrics Loading ...

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Author Biography

Adi Maya

Adi Maya is an anthropologist, researcher, and humanitarian Head of Mission. She has worked for small NGOs in several emergency contexts in the past 10 years in the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa, and Europe. Her experience includes working in Lesvos Island and Athens in Greece, where she also conducted field work. She worked shoulder to shoulder with refugees and developed a participatory and inclusive project programming approach. Adi holds a Master of Advanced Studies in Humanitarian Action from the Geneva Centre of Humanitarian Studies in Switzerland, and a Master in Sociology and Anthropology from Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Her previous research project took place in Ethiopia and was focused on Development and Jewish Faith-based Organisations. Her current interest is in migration, vernacular and embodied humanitarianism, and refugee-led humanitarian NGOs. She is also the co-founder of Humanitarians on the Move, a Swiss association dedicated to advocacy, education and placement of refugees and people with migrant backgrounds in the humanitarian domain.

References

Agamben, G. (1998). Homo Sacer: Sovereign power and bare life. Stanford University Press.

Barnett, M. (2011). Empire of Humanity: A history of humanitarianism. Cornell University Press.

Bendixsen, S., & Wyller, T. (Eds.). 2019. Contested Hospitalities in a Time of Migration: Religious and Secular Counterspaces in the Nordic Region. Routledge.

Billaud, J. (2020). Masters of disorder: Rituals of communication and monitoring at the International Committee of the Red Cross. Social Anthropology, 28(1), 96–111.

Brković, Č. (2017). Introduction: Vernacular Humanitarianisms. Allegra Lab. https://allegralaboratory.net/vernacular-humanitarianisms/

Cabot, H. (2012). The governance of things: Documenting limbo in the Greek asylum procedure. PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 35(1), 11–29.

Cabot, H. (2016a). ‘Contagious’ Solidarity: Reconfiguring care and citizenship in Greece’s social clinics. Social Anthropology, 24(2), 152–166.

Cabot, H. (2016b). ‘Refugee voices’: Tragedy, ghosts, and the anthropology of not knowing. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 45(6), 645–672.

Cabot, H. (2019). The European refugee crisis and Humanitarian Citizenship in Greece. Ethnos, 85(5), 747–771.

Dunn, E.C. (2012). The chaos of humanitarianism: Adhocracy in the Republic of Georgia. Humanity, 3(1), 1–23.

Dunn, E.C. (2017). Vernacular #Humanitarianism, adhocracy, and the problem of emotion. Allegra Lab. https://allegralaboratory.net/vernacular-humanitarianism-adhocracy-and-the-problem-of-emotion/

Fassin, D. (2007). Humanitarianism as a politics of life. Public Culture, 19(3), 499–520.

Fassin, D. (2010). Inequality of lives, hierarchies of humanity: Moral commitments and ethical dilemmas of humanitarianism.

In I. Feldman, & M. Ticktin (Eds.), In the name of humanity: The government of threat and care (pp. 238-255). Duke University Press.

Fassin, D. (2012). Humanitarian Reason: A moral history of the present. University of California Press.

Fechter, A.M., & Schwittay, A. (2019). Citizen Aid: Grassroots interventions in development and humanitarianism. Third World Quarterly, 40(10), 1769–1780.

Feldman, I., & Ticktin, M. (2010). Introduction: Government and humanity. In I. Feldman, & M. Ticktin (Eds.), In the name of humanity: The government of threat and care (pp. 1-26). Duke University Press.

Ferguson, J., & Gupta, A. (2002). Spatializing states: Toward an ethnography of neoliberal governmentality. American Ethnologist, 29(4), 981–1002.

Foucault, M. (1991). Discipline and punish: The birth of a prison. Penguin.

International Medical Corps. (2016). Mental health and psychosocial support situational assessment: Needs, services, and recommendations for support to refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants in Greece. https://www.mhinnovation.net/sites/default/files/downloads/resource/IMC%202016%20Greece.pdf.

Kyriakidou, Maria. 2021. Hierarchies of Deservingness and the Limits of Hospitality in the ‘Refugee Crisis.’ Media, Culture & Society 43 (1): 133-149.

Malkki, L.H. (1996). Speechless emissaries: Refugees, humanitarianism, and dehistoricization. Cultural Anthropology, 11(3), 377–404.

Malkki, L.H. (2015). The Need to Help: The Domestic Arts of International Humanitarianism. Duke University Press.

McGee, D., & Pelham, J. (2018). Politics at play: Locating human rights, refugees and grassroots humanitarianism in the Calais Jungle. Leisure Studies, 37(1), 22–35.

Myers, S., & Aoun, I. (2017). A tide of self-harm and depression: The EU-Turkey Deal’s devastating impact on child refugees and migrants. Save the Children. https://resourcecentre.savethechildren.net/node/10441/pdf/tide_selfharm_depression.pdf

Papataxiarchis, E. (2016). Being ‘there:’ At the frontline of the ‘European refugee crisis’ - Part 1 and Part 2. Anthropology Today, 32(2), 5–9 & 32(3), 3–7.

Redfield, P. (2005). Doctors, borders, and life in crisis. Cultural Anthropology, 20(3), 328–361.

Rozakou, K. (2012). The biopolitics of hospitality in Greece: Humanitarianism and the management of refugees. American Ethnologist, 39(3), 562–577.

Rozakou, K. (2017). Solidarity #Humanitarianism: The blurred boundaries of humanitarianism in Greece. Etnofoor, 29(2), 99–104.

Sandri, E. (2017). ‘Volunteer Humanitarianism’: Volunteers and humanitarian aid in the Jungle refugee camp of Calais. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 44(1), 65–80.

Tsoni, I. (2016). ‘They won’t let us come, they won’t let us stay, they won’t let us leave’. Liminality in the Aegean borderscape: The case of irregular migrants, volunteers and locals on Lesvos. Human Geography, 9(2), 35–46.

UNHCR. (2008). A Community-Based Approach in UNHCR Operations. https://www.unhcr.org/47f0a0232.pdf

UNHCR. (2016). Volunteers who saved lives on Lesvos nominated for Nobel Peace Prize. https://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2016/10/57f7732d4/volunteers-saved-lives-lesvos-nominated-nobel-peace-prize.html

Verwey, M. (2016). Joint Action Plan on the Implementation of the EU-Turkey Statement. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/sites/beta-political/files/december2016-action-plan-migration-crisis-management_en.pdf