Critical and Radical Social Work • vol 3 • no 2 • 189–206 • © Policy Press 2015 • #CRSW
Print ISSN 2049 8608 • Online ISSN 2049 8675 • http://dx.doi.org/10.1332/204986015X14332581741051
article
‘This is a cage for migrants’: the rise of
racism and the challenges for social work in
the Greek context
Dimitra-Dora Teloni, doratel71@gmail.com
Technological Educational Institute (TEI) of Athens, Greece
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Regina Mantanika, Paris Diderot University, France
Greece has been an emblematic case for the European Union’s implementation of anti-immigration
securitisation and externalisation. These policies have been translated into non-tolerance and
intimidation towards certain populations, which, in turn, has resulted in more and more violent
forms of the rejection of migration, which has become mainstream. Parallel to this are racist attacks,
pogroms and acts of violence committed by neo-Nazi groups. On the other hand, a growing antiracist movement has emerged in the form of human rights defence and solidarity networks and
anti-racist resistance. This article aims to show the ways in which the rise of situations of rejection
and racism have come to challenge the work of social workers and to understand how social work
can be rearticulated with regard to its core values of social change and social justice, the antithesis
of the profession’s traditional ‘neutrality’ and ‘culture of silence’.
key words social work • Greece • anti-racist movement • anti-racist social work
Framing the rise of racism in Greece
EU and national migration policies of repression and intimidation
As the wars and interventions involving European Union (EU) countries in Iraq,
Afghanistan and elsewhere created massive waves of refugees, Europe gradually started
another more silent ‘war’ – the repression and intimidation of immigrants.
Specifically, Europe became concerned about its openness in reaction to what
was conceived as an ‘invasive flow’. Its response was a common ‘justice, freedom and
security’ policy, known as the Stockholm Programme (EU, 2010).The common policy
can be summarised as developing cooperation and coordination in the so-called ‘fight
against irregular migration’.
The evolution of Europe’s reaction towards immigration (see Morice, 2011) is
a significant part of the character of ‘externalisation’, that is, the ways in which
European migration policy has been gradually ‘relocated’ to the EU’s eastern and
southern external borders so as to better dissipate migration (see Migreurop, 2014).
The mechanisms that support and ensure this evolution are Frontex (the European
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