ABSTRACT
Since the EU–Turkey agreement of 2016, migrants have been held in the Reception and Identification Centres (RIC) located on the Greek islands, while waiting for their asylum decision. In this context, only those deemed “vulnerable” are able to be transferred to the mainland, and to gain access to a proper housing, outside the camps. Drawing on two and a half months of fieldwork in a women’s centre linked to the camp of Chios, and five months in Samos, this chapter offers a critical analysis of the vulnerability assessment. It examines the category of vulnerability by focusing precisely on what it overlooks – the impact of detention spaces on the experiences of women held in camps – and the practices it produces. This research aims to highlight the paradoxical situation in the hotspot camps: on the one hand, the layout of the sites and the lack of personal space maintains women in a situation of vulnerability, and on the other hand, the only way to regain individual accommodation and security involves “performing” one’s vulnerability during the assessment and conforming to a number of implicit gender stereotypes. This chapter therefore aims to re-politicise gendered vulnerability, by focusing not on the evaluation of “vulnerable groups” but on the impact of border policies on those who are held in the hotspots.
