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The social aesthetics of eligibility: NGO aid and indeterminacy in the Greek asylum process
Author(s) -
CABOT HEATH
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12032
Subject(s) - indeterminacy (philosophy) , dialogical self , agency (philosophy) , vulnerability (computing) , sociology , state (computer science) , law , political science , political economy , law and economics , social psychology , epistemology , social science , psychology , philosophy , computer security , algorithm , computer science
On the porous EU border of Greece, where both fiscal and migration management are said to be in a state of crisis, NGOs figure crucially in the provision of legal and social aid to asylum applicants. I explore the dialogical engagements underpinning the determination of client eligibility at one such NGO in Athens. As workers and aid candidates coproduce “pictures” of lives eligible for protection, profound uncertainties and indeterminacies emerge. I argue that this indeterminacy gives testament to an often overlooked form of agency: how aid candidates and service providers alike reshape and even refuse dominant images of deservingness, victimhood, and vulnerability from within systems of aid distribution.