ABSTRACT
In this chapter, we argue that to approach the question of decolonial politics in European peripheries, we need to understand and analyze the position that the periphery holds within that very system. Focusing on the case of Greece, this chapter emphasizes the link between the two major crises Greece dealt with during the last decade, namely the debt crisis (2010) and the so-called “refugee crisis” (2015). On the one hand, the treatment of Greece through the imposed structural adjustment programmes highlights the specificities of neocolonialism in European peripheries and the EU’s North–South divide. On the other hand, the European anti-immigrant policies as implemented by the Greek state shed light on what Balibar calls the emergence of a real “European apartheid”. Both are indicative of the double role that the European peripheries can assume, namely that of both the colonized and the colonizer.
Along these lines, the so-called “refugee crisis” and the subsequent 2016 “EU-Turkey refugee deal” are rethought in parallel with “resilience”, presented as the prevailing crisis management tool. Emphasizing the structural link between resilience, neoliberalism, and the neocolonial migration policies, we elaborate on how resilience works as a new means of subjectification and how it hinders social change efforts.
