From the national macrocosm to the urban microcosm: the development of Athens' immigration policies.
Sofia NTALIOU, University College Dublin, Ireland
Urbanisation and globalisation have transformed cities into agglomerations of money, people, and information, and consequently, into strategic sites for global issues such as immigration. In this context, a ‘local turn’ has been noticed as cities have gained some autonomy to decide upon various aspects of immigration and integration policies and have formed alliances and networks such as EUROCITIES, URBACT, or Intercultural Cities (Bauder and Gonzalez, 2018). Consequently, a question has arisen; do local immigration policies diverge from the national sovereign ones?
In this presentation, I will focus on the case of Athens, and I will show some preliminary empirical findings regarding this question. Greece was traditionally an emigration country although this has recently changed. In particular, after 2015, Greece has been a country of reception for many applicants and beneficiaries of international protection, while immigration has been a central political debate. The country is highly centralised, which means that it follows a top-down governance structure affecting the autonomy of the local authorities and their decisions regarding local immigration policies. However, Athens has taken on a proactive role and introduced integration policies before its national state.
For this presentation, I will focus on the relationship between local and national immigration policies and what is their hierarchical structure aiming to provide a deeper understanding of the city’s choices. This article is part of a comparative multi-sited ethnographic research that explores if and how local policies produce contingent (forms of) citizenship rights for the un(der)documented residents of Athens and Dublin. The research utilizes the theory of local citizenship, referring to local residency as a source of rights, as its theoretical framework and the local governance of immigrant policies theory as an empirical tool.
Mots clés : migration policies|urban policymaking|governance|Athens
A104344SN