Giorgos Maniatis, MSc, Social Anthropologist:
“EU’s border regime re-stabilized?
Spatial and social contradictions in the implementation of the Hot Spot Approach and the EU-Turkey Deal at the Aegean islands” 
8.5.2018
NKUA /


Mr. Maniatis initially referred to EU’s policies on the management of migration and the current security status of the borders, especially after the agreement between EU and Turkey on March 2016. Furthermore, he focused on the findings of his recent research, namely an ethnographic analysis of a refugee Hotspot infrastructure on Chios island. After describing the Hotspot’s administrative and spatial organisation, he put an emphasis on the systems for refugee identification and registration and the transformation they underwent during the refugee crisis. He made a critical comment on the Europeanization of the control of borders and the systematic involvement of NGOs in the process of asylum granting. He expressed his fear that the current organisation of Hotspots is undermining the right of refugees to asylum. His final remark concerned the permanent crisis of refugees’ status as well as the Hotspot, as an institutional technology. Despite its contradictions and malfunction Hotspot technology has proved its ability to absorb the pressures exerted on it.

In the discussion that followed, interesting comments were made on EU’s policies on borders and migration, while questions were made on Mr Maniatis’ research in Chios, concerning the details of Hotspot institutional and spatial organisation.

Find more (including pictures) at: 
http://riskchange.phs.uoa.gr/past-events/workshops.html