Paper Short Abstract:

The paper explores the political costs of gentrification by asking how activist subjects are produced as evictable through forms of bordering that involve racialization, de-nationalization and securitization discourses in the neighborhood of Exarchia, in Athens, Greece.

Paper Abstract:

The neighbourhood of Exarchia in central Athens, Greece has been an area with great political and historical significance for anti-authoritarian struggles, solidarity, and social justice initiatives. In recent years, it has faced extensive gentrification through touristification and through militarization of public space, as well as eviction of several political squats hosting migrants and antiauthoritarian Greek activists. As part of a research project that examines the underexplored political costs of gentrification processes, this paper aims to analyse the discursive strategies of racialization and securitization that produce subjects as evictable and make such eviction possible. The paper builds on, and further substantiates, van Baar’s concept of ‘evictability’ (2016) which he uses to capture new biopolitical mechanisms of expulsion that target both migrant and citizen populations, in an attempt to challenge ‘the nation-state’ as the quintessential form of bordering by showing how ‘internal Others’ also undergo bordering and expulsion within nation-states as well. The paper examines the forms of racialized bordering enforced in Exarchia, that involve discourses and processes that attempt ‘to restore Greekness’ in the area, with ‘Greekness’ here marked as ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’. It further attempts to sketch resistance to such forms of bordering, forced mobility and eviction by exploring how residents and activists persist on staying put. The paper speaks to debates on bordering and eviction within urban areas and resistance to gentrification.