Paper short abstract:

This paper will discuss the evolution of humanitarian interventions in Greece, investigating the linkages between their current articulations and aims, and problematizing their temporalities in relation to changes in contextual and institutional priorities.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will discuss the ongoing legacies of humanitarian intervention in Greece, across the spectrum of micro-horizons defined by contextual and institutional funding shifts, starting with the decision of DG ECHO to exceptionally deploy within the EU and transitioning to the eventual submersion of all official humanitarian funding under DG HOME in 2019. Applied to the context of the EU 'South', and drawing on the lessons relating to legacies of humanitarian interventions in the global South, the paper will emphasize the contiguous and conflicting resonance of national and EU policy in shaping the lives of migrants and refugees in Greece. Specifically, it will examine how the 'temporal disjunctures' between volunteerism, humanitarian agency, policy-making and institutional funding have conditioned the humanitarian approaches to, and realities of, the refugee crisis in Greece. Likewise, it will examine the disjunctures inherent in the current state-of-affairs, elucidating contrast between the ongoing change in legal regimes for reception and asylum claim, the degrading state of reception conditions in the 'hot spots', the perpetuation of state of exception in the mainland long-term accommodation centers, and the piloting of a rapid integration scheme in urban centers across Greece. The approach taken will draw on the experience of both authors as academic practitioners between 2016 - 2020 working in various roles in local and international NGOs, allowing for the juxtapositions of experience and perspective in space and time, against an informed reflection on the complexities involved in defining and interpreting the appropriateness of humanitarian interventions in Greece.