Global Campus Europe: EMA

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https://reponew.gchumanrights.org/handle/20.500.11825/42
European Master in Human Rights and Democratisation Theses written in partial fulfilment of master's degree

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Browsing Global Campus Europe: EMA by Author "Agelopoulos, Georgios"
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    Non-formal education: a way out : the realisation of the right to education of refugees through non- formal education activities in Greece
    ( 2017) González Maldonado, Raquel ; Agelopoulos, Georgios
    Education is a human right to which any child should have access; yet, the provision of education in emergency situations is particularly difficult and education is often left behind. This holds true when dealing with refugee children´s education as well: for those children, education is a key element that enables their protection and development. Education goes beyond formal and institutionalized provisions provided by the state. Non-formal education has a great potential to improve the realisation of the right to education. Specifically, in emergency settings it gives a superb response to the particular educational needs of refugee children. The flexibility offered by this form of education and its content based on human rights, reconstruction, provision of life skills and psychosocial rehabilitation, make it a highly suitable tool for the realisation of the right to education of refugee children. The so-called refugee crisis that Greece had to face in 2015 led to more than 60,000 refugees stuck in the country whose human rights were violated every day and the right to education was not an exception. In this context, non - formal education proved to be the only solution that responded to refugee children´s learning needs. This study aims to highlight the main features of this process and prove non-formal education as a valid option for the schooling of refugee children.
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    Refugees’ experiences in sites of prolonged displacement, liminality, and exception: a case study of the Diavata refugee camp in Northern Greece
    ( 2021) Boeren, Annelie ; Agelopoulos, Georgios
    Many EU countries, including Greece, set up refugee camps to temporarily accommodate the migrants and refugees that arrived during the 2015-2016 reception crisis. Although they were created as temporary solutions, over the years many refugee camps consolidated into prolonged sites of displacement, which until today continue to accommodate families and individuals under pressing circumstances. Based on the case study of the Diavata camp, the thesis examines how the residents of a refugee camp in mainland Greece experience times of exacerbated exclusion. Drawing on qualitative research methods in the fields of Sociocultural Anthropology and Political Science, the methodology consists of fieldwork (i.e. participant observation and informal interviews), in-depth interviews with key informants, and analysis of reports. Utilizing a grounded theory approach, the thesis conceptualises the refugees’ experiences in the Diavata camp as processes of prolonged displacement, liminality, and exception in an era of exacerbated exclusion. First, it discusses the Diavata refugee camp as a site of multi-layered exclusion through its remote location, enclosed architecture, and discriminatory Covid-19 restrictions. Second, it examines the refugees’ experiences of living in liminality, by scrutinizing the co-existing spaces of ‘exception’ and ‘belonging’ in the Diavata camp and the ‘Casa Base’ safe space next door. Third, it discusses the advent of the new, three-meter high concrete wall and how this makes the Diavata camp resemble an occupied enclave. Overall, the relevance this gives to the thesis, from a human rights perspective, is the documentation and creation of a counter-narrative to both the hegemonic societal discourse and policy practice of exclusion. This narrative highlights the biopolitics of ‘care and control’ as a dominant axis of refugee politics in Greece and the EU.