Lived Experiences of Dehumanisation

The Greek island of Samos is one of the ‘hotspots’ created in the approach presented by the European Union as a strong solution to the 2015 migration crisis. At the heart of this policy, which aims to establish a humane approach to migration, identification and registration centres, known as Closed Controlled Access Centres (CCAC), were built to facilitate the asylum procedure and to provide decent, dignified, and safe living conditions for asylum seekers. The first of these centres was inaugurated on Samos in September 2021 to replace the old ‘jungle’, where thousands of people were crowded together in degrading living conditions. This chapter analyses the living conditions of asylum seekers in the CCAC of Samos, based on their lived experience. Although housing arrangements have considerably improved in the new camp, the asylum seekers participating in this research describe a dehumanising experience, which contrasts strongly with the discourse of European institutions. This chapter shows that dehumanisation is associated with the construction of a ‘dehumanised’ figure of the asylum seeker. The mechanisms at work reveal a way of conceiving and defining the Other. What is depicted here is a specific form of radical alterity which places the Other outside of society and its dominant cultural, social, political, and moral conceptions.