From a Crisis of Management to Humanitarian Crisis Management

Abstract

The declaration of a refugee emergency and the policy of passive humanitarization of the borders at the Aegean Sea and the Balkan Route have been the key moments in 2015’s “long summer of migration,” anticipating a major shift in the policies and discourses on migration. In this context, humanitarian actors, international organizations, and NGOs have enhanced their roles in the EU border regime and have become a substantive element of migration management to such an extent that we can speak of an NGOization of migration policies. The squatting of City Plaza Hotel in Athens emerged with the closure of the borders as a solidarity project that critiques NGOization. In its two years of operation, it has challenged both the depoliticization of assistance and the technocratic approach of management, opposing to them a conception of social solidarity that resembles a politics of everyday life, civil disobedience, and migration as an integral part of the social question.