Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)

The effect of the mismatch between the numbers of forced migrants that host governments are prepared to deal with and the actual number of those seeking refuge is that many forced migrants must find what I term ‘reluctant’ refuge—precarious, unofficial shelter. In this article, I first theorize ‘rel...

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Main Author: Kiddey, R
Format: Journal article
Language:English
Published: Oxford University Press 2019
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author Kiddey, R
author_facet Kiddey, R
author_sort Kiddey, R
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description The effect of the mismatch between the numbers of forced migrants that host governments are prepared to deal with and the actual number of those seeking refuge is that many forced migrants must find what I term ‘reluctant’ refuge—precarious, unofficial shelter. In this article, I first theorize ‘reluctance’, before introducing the concept of archaeology of the contemporary world in order to establish what makes fieldwork drawn on explicitly archaeological. Following this, I offer a concise history of the current political situation in Athens before describing my methodology. I then provide three ‘portraits’ of sites of temporary refugee shelter in the city—a squat, a non-governmental organization-managed hotel and a co-operative day centre—and discuss how these inter-relate to form a landscape of reluctant refugee shelter. The article contributes an explicitly ‘translational’ (Zimmerman et al. 2010) view of how experiences of shelter affect and shape forced displacement in Athens.
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spelling oxford-uuid:71defeaf-ebdb-4976-9891-30d24fe82cea2022-03-26T19:46:24ZReluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)Journal articlehttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_dcae04bcuuid:71defeaf-ebdb-4976-9891-30d24fe82ceaEnglishSymplectic Elements at OxfordOxford University Press2019Kiddey, RThe effect of the mismatch between the numbers of forced migrants that host governments are prepared to deal with and the actual number of those seeking refuge is that many forced migrants must find what I term ‘reluctant’ refuge—precarious, unofficial shelter. In this article, I first theorize ‘reluctance’, before introducing the concept of archaeology of the contemporary world in order to establish what makes fieldwork drawn on explicitly archaeological. Following this, I offer a concise history of the current political situation in Athens before describing my methodology. I then provide three ‘portraits’ of sites of temporary refugee shelter in the city—a squat, a non-governmental organization-managed hotel and a co-operative day centre—and discuss how these inter-relate to form a landscape of reluctant refugee shelter. The article contributes an explicitly ‘translational’ (Zimmerman et al. 2010) view of how experiences of shelter affect and shape forced displacement in Athens.
spellingShingle Kiddey, R
Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title_full Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title_fullStr Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title_full_unstemmed Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title_short Reluctant refuge: an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in Athens (Greece)
title_sort reluctant refuge an activist archaeological approach to alternative refugee shelter in athens greece
work_keys_str_mv AT kiddeyr reluctantrefugeanactivistarchaeologicalapproachtoalternativerefugeeshelterinathensgreece