Conference - June 22-23, 2018

Homeland-Diaspora Relations in Flux

Greece and Greeks abroad at times of Crisis

St Antony's College, University of Oxford.

Return to the conference page
Presenting paper

Surveying the Greek Diaspora in the UK

The expansion of imperial trade and the liberal economic climate in the British Empire in the early 19th century opened many opportunities for Greek merchants who settled in London, Manchester, Liverpool and Cardiff. In the course of the time, several trading families expanded their economic activities in shipping and finance and London emerged as the global center of the Greek shipping by the mid-20th century. In subsequent years, the UK became a very important destination for student migration and many Greeks found work in British universities and other professional occupations. Following the crisis, emigration flows from Greece have skyrocketed as the UK emerged as one of the most dynamic destinations of the new migration, second only to Germany, critically diversifying the Greek diaspora in the UK. Since the primary goal of the Greek Diaspora Project is to examine the profile of the Greek diaspora in the UK, in this presentation we focus on the main sociodemographic attributes of the Greek Diaspora in the UK and explore the characteristics of the recent migrants through the findings of a survey conducted in London in 2017 (EUMIGRE project). Concretely, we examine the motivations underlying migration decisions, the migrants’ plans for the future and the driving and restraining forces of diaspora engagement. Finally, we will present the research design and the main thematic categories of the online survey that will be conducted by the Greek Diaspora Project. Apart from the migration motives and the diaspora engagement we will examine the diaspora’s political attitudes and its beliefs regarding the economic crisis in Greece. Drawing from recent trends on the impact of the crisis in the political behavior of the Greeks we expect that the New Diaspora is more interested in Greek politics and claims higher political involvement.

Author(s) bio

Anastasia Kafe is a Research Associate at the Greek Diaspora Project in SEESOX. She obtained her PhD in Political Science from Panteion University and holds an MA in Political Science and Sociology from the University of Athens. She has teaching experience in Electoral Sociology, Political Theory and Political Analysis at the Department of Political Science and History. She has research experience in data management for research infrastructures, in political radicalism and xenophobia. She has worked as a researcher in the research program CESSDA/So.Da.Net - European Strategy Forum for Research Infrastructures, in the THALIS project (EU Framework Program) - “Designing & Operating an Infrastructure for the Empirical Inquiry of Political & Social Radicalism in Greece”, in the Aristeia II-CAICG project “Collective Action of Indignant Citizens in Greece: causes, content, agency, and implications for policy maker” and in the project "Examining xenophobia in Greece during the economic crisis: A computational perspective", funded by European Economic Area Financial Mechanism. Her research interests lie on mixed methods, the study of electoral behaviour, the implications of economic voting, the discourse and strategy of extreme right parties with a special focus on anti-immigrant behaviour and xenophobic attitudes.
Manolis Pratsinakis is the Onassis Foundation Research Fellow at the Department of Politics and International Relations, University of Oxford. He was previously a Marie Curie postdoctoral fellow at the University of Macedonia (2015-2017), a visiting fellow at the University of Sussex (2016) and a lecturer at the University of Amsterdam (2013-2015). His academic interests broadly concern the study of migration and nationalism. He has done research and published on immigrant-native relations, ethnic boundaries and categorization, everyday nationhood, brain drain, and intra-EU mobility in the post 2008 period. Manolis has studied Geography and Sociology (with honors) and completed his PhD in 2013 in Anthropology. His MA studies were supported by a Huygens scholarship from Nuffic and his PhD research by a postgraduate IKY scholarship.
Return to the conference page

Subscribe for updates

Suscipit eu placerat ullamcorper mus a habitasse ad etiam etiam id scelerisque nisi a a posuere ac a parturient magnis.