Gender and community shaping migration experiencesa women's community as a symbolic and material space of resistance

Resumo

ABSTRACT This thesis describes the last 4 years in the Greek migration context, analyzing the aspects that have caused and influenced the deterioration of the situation. Direct action alternatives are presented as different responses organized from the grassroots, from below what we understand as the basis of the social fabric. Different forms of intervention are also presented. Various possibilities are examined as an array of alternatives that opposes traditional and professionalized humanitarian approaches. Here Melissa Network is presented and thoroughly analyzed as one of the grassroots initiatives offering positive contributions and developments to the humanitarian and social intervention sector. To make a rigorous description of the context, the protocols, conventions, agreements and measures taken by international institutions and the European Union (in particular related to Human Rights and migration) have been reviewed, in addition to numerous research articles that analyze these core tools. Continuous participant observation has been practiced while I was working and living in the field during the four years of this thesis work. A mapping and analysis of grassroots initiatives, movements and social groups has been possible thanks to my engagement as a worker in two of the most important grassroots refugee organizations in Greece and the militancy in social groups. Finally, as a special contribution, the organizational process of the network of migrant and refugee women in Greece, Melissa Network (MN), has been documented, with the aim of demonstrating the positive impact on the lives of the women and the success of the approach used and designed by the network itself. Its goal is to work with women and support them as agents of change, in contrast to the hegemonic discourse typical of the humanitarian sector, which insists on presenting them as victims, passive subjects and recipients of violence. The means used to document and extract conclusions regarding the network’s approach and contributions have included: the analysis of the states of mind of women members of the network, daily narratives in the sessions, groups and activities gathered through participant observation, and the intervention of the author as a member of the network’s professional core team. In parallel, three basic processes are described: the individual processes of the newcomers, women who arrived in Greece in the last three years seeking asylum; the group/associative processes of those who have been in the host country for a while; and, finally, the network’s processes which support both newcomers and those who are in the process of organizing their own associations. Melissa Network serves as an umbrella offering the structure and the bases to help develop the community. Ultimately, it generates strategies of resistance and promotes direct actions, therefore women’s narratives convey their capacities and become acts of change and subversion. In essence, a major social challenge existing in Greece is presented and analyzed in this work. A social problem suffered by the refugee and asylum seeker population, as well as the Greek population, which has taken an active role in the creation and development of alternative initiatives aiming to alleviate the situation of people seeking refuge and international protection. By situating knowledge and experience we have, since 2015, been able to chronologically reconstruct obstacles faced by asylum seekers and refugees once they arrive in Greek territory. We are able to offer an alternative support speech from the grassroots, giving it a deserved value that should be recognized, and acknowledging the achievements and good practices that function within these initiatives, especially at the Melissa Network. The contribution based on the information provided in this work, by making visible, documenting, and analyzing the work at MN, might open up options and approaches, in order to replicate some of the positive aspects of the Greek case. MN can become a case study to be contrasted and adapted, not only in the Mediterranean but also in similar contexts where migration is an undeniable and major reality challenging the top institutional frameworks.