Unruly subjects
Migration, solidarity and resistance in Greece
Will be published approx. on 7. July 2026
Book
Hardback
216 pages
978-1-5261-8308-8 (ISBN)
Description
Unruly Subjects takes readers to the heart of Europe's escalating border struggles: the Aegean islands, where thousands of 'undesirable' migrants have been confined and abandoned in EU-funded camps. Drawing on nearly a decade of research, Ludek Stavinoha reveals the hidden spaces where resistance forms and solidarity grows, tracing migrants' daily efforts to claim dignity and rights alongside grassroots volunteers who have built essential support networks. Central to the book are the creative, precarious, and often ambivalent solidarities forged between volunteers and refugees, citizens and non-citizens, as they challenge racialised boundaries and state-sanctioned control. Urgent and compelling, Unruly Subjects shows how people navigate and subvert Europe's increasingly hostile border regime and highlights the alternative imaginaries of justice and possibility that emerge from their struggles. -- .
Reviews / Votes
'Unruly subjects offers a rigorous and nuanced ethnographic account of grassroots humanitarianism. Through attention to everyday practices of care, solidarity, and resistance, the book exposes the tensions, limits, and possibilities of bottom-up humanitarian action to challenge dominant narratives of depoliticized and paternalistic intervention and to disrupt the operation of supposedly orderly border regimes. This work is an important contribution to contemporary debates on migration, humanitarianism, and the politics of solidarity.'- Katerina Rozakou, Assistant Professor in Social Anthropology, Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences
'We are witnessing an intensifying global war on migration: border fortifications are expanding, migration routes are increasingly deadly, and acts of solidarity face growing criminalization. Yet such measures have not prevented people from crossing borders or contesting exclusionary legal regimes. Unruly subjects provides a richly grounded account of how migrants and non-migrants forge practices of solidarity, resistance, and hope in the Greek archipelago. This book makes an important and timely contribution to scholarship on migration, borders, and humanitarianism.'
- Shahram Khosravi, Professor of Anthropology, Stockholm University -- .
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Manchester
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Illustrations
11 images
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 156 mm
Thickness: 13 mm
Weight
479 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-5261-8308-8 (9781526183088)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dr Ludek Stavinoha is Associate Professor in Media and Global Development at the University of East Anglia -- .
Content
Introduction
1 Violence, abandonment, solidarity
2 Between complicity and solidarity: The politics of grassroots humanitarianism.
3 Arts of resistance in the carceral archipelago
4 Unruly incursions: Reclaiming speech in the public sphere
5 Precarious solidarities
Conclusion
References -- .
1 Violence, abandonment, solidarity
2 Between complicity and solidarity: The politics of grassroots humanitarianism.
3 Arts of resistance in the carceral archipelago
4 Unruly incursions: Reclaiming speech in the public sphere
5 Precarious solidarities
Conclusion
References -- .