The biopolitics of hospitality in Greece: Humanitarianism and the management of refugees

• Published in: American ethnologist Vol. 39; no. 3; pp. 562 - 577
• Main Author: ROZAKOU, KATERINA
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Malden, USA Wiley Subscription Services 01.08.2012; Blackwell Publishing Inc; Wiley; American Ethnological Society; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Asylum; Asylum seekers; Biopolitics; Culture; Discourse; Ethnography; Ethnology; Europa; European Union; Greece; Greeks; Hospitality; Human ecology, environment; Human settlements; Humanitarian aid; Humanitarianism; Immigration; Management; Migrations; Morphological source materials; NGOs; Physical anthropology, ethnobiology; Political asylum; Political Power; Politics; refugee management; Refugees; Social relations; Social relations. Intercultural and interethnic relations. Collective identity; Social structure and social relations; Symbolism; Volunteerism; Volunteers; Greece; Southern Europe; Greece; Hospitality; biopolitics; Non-governmental organization; Refugee; NGOs; humanitarianism; Humanitarian aid; Management; Refugees' camp; refugee management
• ISSN: 0094-0496; 1548-1425
• DOI: 10.1111/j.1548-1425.2012.01381.x

Drawing on my research in refugee settings in Greece, I relate the biopolitics of humanitarianism with the Greek notion of "hospitality" and established cultural schemata of social relations. The dominant discourse on hospitality is reproduced in the humanitarian setting of a camp where asylum seekers are produced as worthy guests, placed in the middle ground between mere biological life and full social existence. Volunteers working with refugees on the street, by contrast, attempt to challenge biopolitical power through the reversal of hospitality, through which the refugee is symbolically reconstituted as a host (though a disputable one) and a political subject.