Book: Heath Cabot (2014) On the Doorstep of Europe: Asylum and Citizenship in Greece, University of Pennsylvania Press

On the Doorstep of Europe
Asylum and Citizenship in Greece

Heath Cabot

272 pages | 6 x 9 | 5 illus.
Cloth 2014 | ISBN 978-0-8122-4615-5 | $65.00s | £42.50
Ebook 2014 | ISBN 978-0-8122-0980-8 | $65.00s | £42.50
A volume in the Ethnography of Political Violence series

MORE INFO: http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15206.html

On the Doorstep of Europe is particularly timely, as the international community weighs what are sometimes seen as competing interests of rights and security and as asylum regimes are themselves threatened. Importantly, Heath Cabot’s work illustrates ways that protections can fall short in that the systems that are set up to ensure that persecuted individuals receive safe haven can become unworkable for the very individuals they are designed to serve.”—Susan Bibler Coutin, University of California, Irvine

“Original, vividly written, and ethnographically rich, On the Doorstep of Europe breaks new ground as a contribution to the anthropology of law, globalization studies, and the ethnography of the eastern Mediterranean. In particular, it illuminates the increasingly complex dynamics of a country newly confronting cultural diversity and rapid urbanization.”—Michael Herzfeld, Harvard University

Greece has shouldered a heavy burden in the global economic crisis, struggling with political and financial insecurity. Greece has also the most porous external border of the European Union, tasked with ensuring that the EU’s boundaries are both “secure and humanitarian” and hosting enormous numbers of migrants and asylum seekers who arrive by land and sea. The recent leadership and fiscal crises have led to a breakdown of legal entitlements for both Greek citizens and those seeking refuge within the country’s borders.

On the Doorstep of Europe is an ethnographic study of the asylum system in Greece, tracing the ways asylum seekers, bureaucrats, and service providers attempt to navigate the dilemmas of governance, ethics, knowledge, and sociability that emerge through this legal process. Centering on the work of an asylum advocacy NGO in Athens, Heath Cabot explores how workers and clients grapple with predicaments endemic to Europeanization and rights-based protection. Drawing inspiration from classical Greek tragedy to highlight both the transformative potential and the violence of law, Cabot charts the structural violence effected through European governance, rights frameworks, and humanitarian intervention while also exploring how Athenian society is being remade from the inside out. She shows how, in contemporary Greece, relationships between insiders and outsiders are radically reconfigured through legal, political, and economic crises.

In addition to providing a textured, on-the-ground account of the fraught context of asylum and immigration in Europe’s borderlands, On the Doorstep of Europe highlights the unpredictable and transformative ways in which those in host nations navigate legal and political violence, even in contexts of inexorable duress and inequality.

Heath Cabot teaches anthropology at the College of the Atlantic in Maine.

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Reviews: Theodoros Fouskas, Theodoros Fouskas, Nigerian Immigrants in Greece: Low-Status Work, Community, and Decollectivization, Nova Science Publishers, 2014

Nigerian Immigrants 978-1-63321-674-7

 Theodoros Fouskas

Nigerian Immigrants in Greece

Low-Status Work, Community, and Decollectivization

Nova Science Publishers

New York, 2014

Pub. Date: 2014  4th Quarter

Binding: Hardcover  Binding: ebook

ISBN: 978-1-63321-674-7

Reviews

“This book provides rich insights into the lives of migrants in Greece, portraying them not as victims or hustlers but people. Fouskas’ analysis of the impact of insecurity and deregulation on the Nigerian community has important lessons for all those interested in labour organising, migration and work across the European Union. Readers will see street vendors with a new appreciation of their lives and struggles after reading this fascinating study.” Reviewed by Bridget Anderson, Professor of Migration and Citizenship, Deputy Director at the Centre on Migration, Policy and Society (COMPAS), University of Oxford.

“This important study provides a perceptive and comprehensive overview of the Nigerian immigrant experience in Greece. Creatively combining interviews with survey and census data, Fouskas vividly recounts the hopes, dreams, fears, trials, and triumphs of this emerging ethnic community with clarity and compassion. This book will become a reference point for research on low-status work, immigrant organizations, collective organizing, and labor rights in Greece. It not only effectively summarizes what we know about this immigrant group, but also puts a human face to how Nigerian immigrants have quietly, yet profoundly, reshaped Greek society today.” – Reviewed by Van C. Tran, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Columbia University.

“Dr Th. Fouskas provides us with a scholarly first-class study of Nigerian migrant labour in Greece. It considerably adds to our understanding and through a penetrating macro and micro sociological analysis deprives us of misconceptions, clichés and theoretical fallacies of the origins, patterns and functions of migrant workers’ exclusion. It is a valuable book for students and experts in migration, community and work studies.” – Reviewed by Iordanis Psimmenos, Associate Professor, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Greece.

“Dr. Theodoros Fouskas, with his book Nigerian Immigrants in Greece: Low-status Work, Community, and Decollectivization, has stimulated an imperative discussion of the severe effects of precarious, low-status work on the collective organization of immigrant workers in the 21st century. This well-conceptualized book and unique in-depth research deals with crucial questions and complex issues and offers invaluable insights with remarkable efficiency. It helps fill a significant gap in Greek and international literature and should be recommended to academics, researchers, policymakers and all those seeking comprehension of labor and immigration issues. Its thorough analysis with sufficient clarity also makes it a required source suitable for classroom use. The book contributes significantly to the current discourse concerning the difficulties caused by acute employment precariousness in immigrant community organization, association formation and participation, immigrant workers’ representation, social and labor rights, trade unionism and solidarity and how these should be combated within a contemporary insecure socio-economic context.” – Reviewed by Angelos Syrigos, Assistant Professor, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences, Secretary General of Population and Social Cohesion, Ministry of Interior, Greece.

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