ABSTRACT
Drawing on examples from my research experience and my work in the non-profit sector, this chapter aims to explore if and how we can speak for immigrant detainees. Taking Greece as the setting for the analysis, it considers how the third sector and academic research can help us understand and criticize detention, if at all. In it I argue that while NGOs offer much-needed services subsidized by the Greek government through European funding, their work seems more often than not to be aligned with the subdued environment the facilities wish to foster, thus further entrenching the system in the detention industrial complex. In this politically charged context, what is the purpose of ethnographic research? Rather than shying away from the civil society–academic gulf, this paper seeks to connect these disparate institutions and explore ways to open detention sites in Greece to a global gaze.
