Suitcase Europeanization: the urban transformation of Northern Greece through the Gastarbeiter migration and return (1960-1981)

Abstract

ABSTRACT The road to Europeanization for the Greek state and society was a bumpy one: it carried people on the move to Western Europe and back, together with hopes, dreams, money and ideas. This article shows that Greece’s quest for development alla Europeana passed through the Gastarbeiter migration and return. It was manifested in outspoken and subtle ways of transformation in social attitudes connected with urbanism and consumerism. Transnationalism and social remittances are my two interpretative schemes to approach horizontal Europeanization, termed here Suitcase Europeanization, emphasizing migration’s role in the transfer of practices and ideas about Europe before the country’s official accession to the European Economic Community. The primary sources used are contemporaneous social scientists’ works, Greek and foreign. Both scholars and policymakers showed a keen interest in the region’s mutation from a predominantly rural area to a laboratory of change and urban transformation, envisioning European standards.