“A Total Black Hole”: How COVID-19 Increased Bureaucratic Violence Against Refugees in Greece

Raluca Bejan; Tracy Glynn

doi:10.25071/1920-7336.41079

Authors

Raluca Bejan School of Social Work and Department of European Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2601-3964
Tracy Glynn Environment and Society Program, St.Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9759-2273

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25071/1920-7336.41079

Keywords:

asylum seekers, refugees, bureaucratic violence, Greece, COVID-19, Athens

Abstract

State responses to COVID-19 were unevenly felt across society. Negative consequences of lockdowns and travel restrictions for the upper classes were largely restricted to not seeing friends or taking holidays. For those with little or no right to have rights (Arendt, 1970), those relegated to society’s margins—such as refugees and asylum claimants—state responses to COVID-19 metamorphosed into Kafkaesque restrictions, surveillance, and control. Informed by participant observations and 10 interviews with civil society actors conducted in Athens in 2021 and 2022 at the height of the pandemic, this paper shows how the Greek state weaponized COVID-19 to further exclude refugees from society, deny asylum procedures, and reduce service provision for those awaiting the outcome of their asylum claims.

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Author Biographies

Raluca Bejan, School of Social Work and Department of European Studies, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

Raluca Bejan is Associate Professor of Social Work and cross-appointed to the Department of European Studies at Dalhousie University. She can be reached at Raluca.Bejan@dal.ca.

Tracy Glynn, Environment and Society Program, St.Thomas University, Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada

Tracy Glynn is an assistant professor in the Environment and Society program at St. Thomas University. She can be reached at tglynn@stu.ca.

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