Youth in (times of) crisis: Migration, precarity, and shifting identities in the Southern borders of Europe

ABSTRACT

This article traces youth migration from Greece to Cyprus in the context of the ongoing economic crisis, and reveals the impact of labor conditions, precarity and mobility on the lives and aspirations of young migrants. I interrogate jointly the categories of “youth” and “migrant,” and argue that, far from being fixed, these are produced and redefined by the temporalizing and historicizing effects of the crisis, the former as a protracted state of being, and the latter as a phenomenon of contingency that needs to be addressed through policies of economic recovery and development. At the same time, the article documents the dynamic ways, in which young migrants engage in, reproduce and resist discourses and structures that shape their everyday life and hopes for the future. The intra-Southern European migration from Greece to Cyprus, offers a distinctive ethnographic context to document how new migratory routes develop, especially in a terrain of intersecting economic crises in the southern borders of Europe. Migration in this case is not, as often assumed, a linear, one-way direction, but an ongoing process of decision-making around new opportunities, destinations and mobilities.

KEYWORDS:

• Youth
• crisis
• migration
• precarity
• Greece
• Cyprus

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Although the economic crisis in Greece started earlier and is considered ongoing, 2010 is the year that Greece signed its first structural adjustment programme and a reference point as the start of the crisis. Almost half a million Greeks have left the country since 2010 (Eurostat, 2018). More than 50% of these emigrants are classified as young (below 30 years-old) (Labrianidis & Pratsinakis, 2015), with unemployment levels particularly high for this age group.

2. Greece has also been extensively studied as a country of immigration, including economic migration, forced displacement, “return” migration, and diasporas (see Antoniou, 2003; Cabot, 2014; Christou & King, 2015; Dalakoglou, 2010; Iosifides & King, 1998; Michail & Christou, 2016; Triantafyllidou, 2010).

3. Greek migration to the north of Cyprus is very limited, although one interview was conducted with a Greek man, who lives in Lefkoşa, in the northern part of the capital. For purposes of brevity, “Cyprus” in this article predominantly refers to the southern part of the island, which is under the administrative control of the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus.

4. Although I use the category of migrant to describe the socio-economic and political status of the participants, a number of them do not self-identify as such. This is discussed through the category of the “non-migrant” later in the article.

5. Most statistical and policy data define youth as those under 30 years-old, but the paper makes the point that youth is experienced and conceptualized in this context as an extended period, even by people well in their 30s, who are included here.

6. It derives from the term kalamaras for a male or kalamarou for a female, and is used in everyday speech by Greek Cypriots to refer to people from Greece, sometimes with pejorative connotations (Argyrou, 1996, p. 51).

7. The number of Greek passport holders in the Republic of Cyprus almost doubled in a decade; rising from 10,781 in 2000 to 20,767 in 2010. And it almost tripled within three years from 2010 to 2013 reaching 27,912 (United Nations Population Division, http://www.un.org/en/development/desa/population/). In 2016, it was estimated that more than 30,000 Greeks resided in Cyprus.

8. As large economic capital has been moved from Greece to Cyprus since 2010, more “Greek” businesses opened in the island and became popular employment hubs for young migrants.