Hope in the untenable: Seeking asylum in Samos, Greece

Abstract

What happens when one stakes her life and the lives of others on hope? And what happens when that hope is not realized in ways that are imagined, nor desired? This thesis looks at experiences of forced migration as they exist in the Aegean Sea, where people take great risks crossing from Turkey to Greece in a smuggler’s boat with the intent of claiming asylum within the bounds of the European Union. Upon arrival on the Greek isle of Samos, one of five Greek islands in the Aegean hosting a hotspot or refugee camp, those seeking asylum are met with circumstances which often disappoint the hopes which inspired the crossing of the EU border, and yet they continue to regularly engage hope as a method of making decisions and taking action. This thesis draws on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork in Samos, Greece to probe the ways in which hope functions, falters, renews, and fails in light of hardship and uncertainty in experiences of forced migration. This ethnography begins with an exploration of the political, legal, material, and social atmospheres which generate not only difficult conditions but a situation which is considered by many of the island’s inhabitants to be untenable. This untenable situation is one that prompts a desire for change yet offers no clear paths forward to resolution. Those seeking asylum are legally restricted from certain rights, such as travel away from the island during asylum procedures, while social prejudices frequently lead to a denial of opportunities for employment or housing while residing in Samos. Material poverty further compounds a sense of life in the hotspot as unbearable. Within this untenable situation, hope is explored as method of acting to achieve valued ends. This thesis proposes an analytical toolkit which introduces four elements of hopeful action through which ethnographic material might be examined: potential, outcome, emotion, and timing. In considering each of these four tracks of hoping, engagements with hope reveal conscious evaluation and a continual effort to focus on and achieve what is valued. When examined through the lens of the untenable situation in Samos, the tracks of hoping suggest that those seeking asylum prioritize the realization of valued ends which reflect a life that is good enough, rather than one that is ideal.