(Non-)Institutional Manifestations of Migrant Infrastructures for Refugees in Rural Greece

Abstract

The year 2015 was a turning point for the migration and asylum system in the EU and Greece.Almost 900,000 migrants and refugees crossed Turkey’s land and sea borders on their way to Europe. Theso-called ‘migration and refugee crisis’ dominated the academic and political discourse and provokeddifferent reactions from local communities, civil society and long-time resident migrants. Especially in ruralareas, the newly arriving refugees triggered different reactions from the local population. At the sametime, accommodating the refugees and facilitating their integration into rural localities created additionalinfrastructure needs. Drawing on the theoretical discussion on migrant infrastructures’ and ‘arrivalinfrastructures’, the main objective of this paper is to discuss the different manifestations of migrantinfrastructures in rural communities, in Western Greece in particular. The paper draws on a recentempirical study conducted in the framework of a project that explored territorial inequalities and the linkswith different forms of mobility in both urban (Attiki Region) and rural areas of Greece (Western GreeceRegion). While the discussion on arrival infrastructures mainly relates to urban settings, in this paperwe argue that the rural context informs and enriches the debate, allowing to be considered in termsof non-fixed assemblages of institutional (formal) and non-institutional (informal) arrangements that fulfilboth tangible and less tangible needs and requirements. Forging better links between the migrationinfrastructures approach and the formulation of imaginaries and characteristics of wellbeing will enablea better understanding of refugee agency, and one more informed by social theory.