ABSTRACT
Migration today is a global and globalizing phenomenon that renders national borders obsolete and calls into question the viability of nation states and national identities. As new flexible forms of migration are increasing and transnationalism is becoming a marked trend, female migration is recognized as an important phenomenon in scholarly research and policy making (Lenz, et al. 2002: 8). At the same time as undermining national structures, migration has contributed to the reconstruction of increasingly impenetrable borders. It is in local situations and contexts that the impact of migration is experienced, debated and contested most directly and urgently. Distinguishing between ethnic Greek Albanians and ‘other’ Albanians (that is two groups who, for reasons explained later, enjoy different statuses in Greece) this chapter focuses on the relationship between different relational processes and mechanisms for the production of boundaries. It examines ways in which boundaries are drawn across contexts and on how constructed institutionalized and heavily politicized boundaries are gendered and, although carefully policed, shift, are crossed or become fluid; the plasticity of boundaries, is important in ex(in)clusionary policies on the one hand and ex(in)clusionary practices on the other.
