Supervisors info:
Δήμητρα Λαμπροπούλου, Επίκ. Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Βαγγέλης Καραμανωλάκης, Αναπλ. Καθηγητής, Τμήμα Ιστορίας και Αρχαιολογίας, ΕΚΠΑ
Λίνα Βεντούρα, Καθηγήτρια, Τμήμα Πολιτικής Επιστήμης και Ιστορίας, Πάντειο Πανεπιστήμιο
Summary:
Was there a state migration policy in postwar Greece? And if so, in what did it consist? Then again, if not, what was the Greek state's stance in regards to the migratory phenomenon of that period, which remains, to this day, engraved in the collective memory of the land and the family stories of its people with the word “Gastarbeiter”? The working hypothesis of this MA dissertation is that the formation of a migration policy constituted a central political wager for postwar Greece ― an object of constant negotiation, both on the level of external and internal affairs of the Greek state, during the first postwar period. On this basis, the subject matter of this dissertation is focused on the processes that led to the selection of the “migratory solution” as a means of dealing with the social question of the time, the distinct phases of its design and application, the ways in which this policy influenced the migratory phenomenon and its developments, and, finally, the public handling of the migration issue. The time frame of this case study stems from the very subject at hand, from the meeting point between two crucial matters: the history of modern migrations, which appear as the reverse side of the industrial era's social question, and the political uses of migration as a biopolitical instrument of population control. Matters, which were merged into a nationally designed and internationally orchestrated policy for the first and ―in these terms― only time in Greek history during the first postwar period, from 1946 to 1967. On the contrary, it was the sources that defined the subject matter, through their restrictions and, also, their uncharted abundance. These consist mainly of reports published by the international organizations that orchestrated postwar migrations, in particular the International Labor Organization (ILO) and the Working Group on Labour Mobility of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), of discussions recorded in the Parliamentary Minutes, of articles in the daily newspapers Kathimerini and Eleftheria, and of scientific studies carried out by economists and social scientists of the time. The latter are comprised essentially by Xenophon Zolotas' study for the Bank of Greece entitled, “International Labor Migration and Economic Development”, and by publications in the Greek periodicals Archive of Economical and Social Sciences, New Economy, and Contemporary issues: Periodical of scientific research. On a bibliographical level, and in the restricted range of a MA dissertation, this case study draws primarily upon recent Greek social history. The text is constantly in dialogue with the works of Lina Ventouras and Dimitra Lampropoulou, as well as relative articles of Anna Machera and Savvas Rompolis, while also following concerns unfolded in the studies of Georgios Tsobanoglou, Giorgos Stathakis, Alexis Frangiadis, and Efi Avdela. This dissertation is also inscribed in the study of the construction of the unique postwar European migration regime, and in this respect it draws upon important methodological tools implemented in the studies of Christoph Rass, Roger Böhning, and Michael Hasenau, among others. The dissertation's structure attempts to facilitate the observation of the phenomenon. In the first chapter, through the overview of the architectural framework of Europe's postwar migration regime and the particular place occupied by Greece as a labor exporting country in it, the intrinsic interconnection between the application of the Marshall Plan and the redistribution of surplus labor in Europe is showcased, both on an international and on a national level. In the second chapter, where the distinct phases of the designing of Greece's migration policy are traced at the pace of the country's central political developments, through the varying conceptualizations of this policy certain salient points start to emerge alongside the gradual development of the phenomenon ― in a nutshell, the chapter follows the impact of this international policy inside the Greek state. Lastly, in the third chapter, where the ways in which social scientists problematized migration as a hitherto central element of the public dialogue, the connections between the aforementioned salient points of this policy and the fundamental aspects of the broader social and economic issues of that time start to appear. Therefore, from an approach of systems analysis, we move to that of discourse analysis, and thereon to its reframing within broader thematic categories, searching, through the silences and the shadowy figure of the Homo migrans of postwar Greek society, the material reality of the migration policy which constituted a central wager for the Greek state in the first postwar years.
