Commoning the City in Solidarity with Refugees: A Study of the Exarchea Neighborhood of Athens

This study aims to analyze the refugee solidarity movement in Greece that grew in response to the refugee “crisis” in the 2010s. This movement has offered various forms of support to refugees ranging from housing, medical aid, and food to community and social spaces. This support is offered primarily in squatted buildings. Based on in-depth interviews and participant observation, this dissertation seeks to bring to light the challenges faced by the solidarians in providing continued support to refugees. I argue that the non-hierarchical and inclusive nature of solidarity spaces in the Exarchea neighborhood of Athens embodies Lefebvre’s ideas of citizenship as inhabitance. However, government repression is one of the largest challenges that the movement faces in maintaining its nonhierarchical stance. Solidarity spaces face evictions and police surveillance that make migrants hesitant to actively engage with such spaces. Simultaneously, solidarians experience exhaustion from resisting state violence in their efforts to organize in support of migrants. I also argue that socioeconomic differences, language barriers, and gendered dynamics, as well as gender-based violence, contribute to migrants’ inability to maintain an equal inhabitance of solidarity spaces that are intended to be inclusive.