and Rachel Einwohner (2004) urge in the quote above, my analysis will be framed not only
around speaking and acting subjects but around listening and witnessing subjects as well.
By examining the interactional nature of resistance, I argue, the role of power inside
detention is problematised; therefore, we can better examine the multifaceted forms of
violence nurtured inside Greek detention centres. As feminist scholars have argued,
resistance and domination have a cyclical relationship (Faith, 1993; Flowerdew, 1997).
Drawing on this, I view resistance as the predictable product of the Greek detention
system. In fact, its predictability is what makes resistance the ultimate quest for freedom;
a practice and force that challenges their presumed absence and unwantedness (Stierl,
2019). While this may lead to the further exercise of power by dominators, resistance will
also be further provoked, and so on, creating a cycle of interrelated actions.
Previous chapters sought to understand how extreme violence and abjection became so
normalised and institutionalised inside Greece’s detention regime. This concluding chapter
adds another layer to the analysis foregrounded in the thesis by highlighting that inside a
detention setting, violence can better be conceptualised within the context of the resistance
strategies with which it is confronted and which it seeks to overcome (Flowerdew, 1997).
In other words, resistance inside immigration detention centres is such an inherent aspect
of the detention system, that an exploration of what goes on behind bars without at the
same time paying attention to how harmful practices and mechanisms are resisted, would
be a fatal oversight. Resistant acts can no longer be left unaddressed, often covered up
with the blood of those attempting to break free from the system of detention in Greece.
The chapter is divided in three parts. First, I will identify types of protest, including riots
and demand-led protests and second move on to consider self-harm and other forms of
corporal resistance. While these two broad types may differ immensely, they have one thing
in common; they both have invited a militarised knee-jerk reaction, which is violent,
spectacular and very politicised, and a bureaucratised response, which anonymizes,
routinises and depoliticises challenges against the system. These responses I will show are
not mutually exclusive and are often times overlapping and have a shared aim, to protect,
legitimise and exonerate the system. The third part engages with the antiauthoritarian
movement in order to explore the bond between the inside and the outside and the
productive nature of resistance (Lilja et al., 2017). Here, the potential connection between
resistance and social change is a particularly compelling avenue towards finding the light
in the bleakness I have described in the previous chapters. In doing so, this chapter will
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