Solidarity and Contestation: Local Refugee Reception Practices at the South-Eastern EU Border Islands

Abstract

This article offers an analysis of how various actors engaged in and reacted to refugee reception practices in a multi-level governance setting at the main island entry points to the European Union (EU) from the south-east. Lesbos, Chios, Samos, Kos and Leros received almost one million people out of the 1,6 million which arrived in the EU in 2015 and 2016. In the humanitarian emergency, which followed the increased arrivals, the local administration and the local community took important initiatives to fill the gaps of the European and the national responses while also opposing the EU policies which degraded the human dignity of refugees. Drawing on rich qualitative material I demonstrate how solidarity and contestation derive from a complex local reality. The findings of the article point to the consequences of the multilevel governance structure of asylum for actors’ interactions or lack of interaction on the ground of the border islands.