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Paper short abstract

The paper attends to the affective sites of the political and the political layers of affect by examining the feelings and affective tensions entailed in collective acts of helping others, organized in uncertain conditions shaped by conflict, austerity and migration.

Paper long abstract

Based on research in the city of Thessaloniki in Greece, this paper examines how the lives of Syrians fleeing war and the lives of austerity afflicted residents in the city meet under uncertain times. It explores the shape these encounters take, as affects mobilize Syrian newcomers and local residents to participate in collective acts of helping that respond to everyday survival. It approaches political collective acts of helping as affective and relational realms and looks at the potentiality and tensions that they generate as they link to emotions that sediment and transform significations of difference. The paper is guided by underlying research problems that lay with the following questions: how can we map and illustrate the various ambivalent forms that affect takes in everyday sites of affection and endurance, punctuated by violence. How is life reproduced in the attenuated realms linked to conflict, austerity capitalism and migration policies.