In the interstices of the city: Albanian women in Athens [Dans les interstices de la ville: les Albanaises à Athènes]

Vaiou, D

dc.contributor.author	Vaiou, D	en
dc.date.accessioned	2014-03-01T01:51:53Z
dc.date.available	2014-03-01T01:51:53Z
dc.date.issued	2002	en
dc.identifier.issn	07557809	en
dc.identifier.uri	https://dspace.lib.ntua.gr/xmlui/handle/123456789/26494
dc.relation.uri	http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?eid=2-s2.0-0038382973&partnerID=40&md5=3868ca851ca0aab8f32f23d202d872e7	en
dc.subject	(Albanian) migrant women	en
dc.subject	Gender	en
dc.subject	The informal	en
dc.subject	Urban space	en
dc.subject.other	gender relations	en
dc.subject.other	immigrant population	en
dc.subject.other	urban society	en
dc.subject.other	womens status	en
dc.subject.other	Greece	en
dc.title	In the interstices of the city: Albanian women in Athens [Dans les interstices de la ville: les Albanaises à Athènes]	en
heal.type	journalArticle	en
heal.publicationDate	2002	en
heal.abstract	In the aftermath of 1989, Southern European countries including Greece, former places of out-migration, have become the destination of massive waves of migrants. By now numerous estimates, reports and studies point to the high presence of women in these migratory movements - which challenges established stereotyped images of the migrant as a young male single person. The ""discovery"" of women migrants, with different presence in various migrant communities, has opened new areas of feminist research - and new tensions in feminist debates, particularly in Southern Europe where the experience of multicultural societies is very new. This is the case in urban geography/studies, to which this paper seeks to contribute, based on on-going research in Athens. Athens, like all Greek cities, has a development history in which what has been called ""the informal"" plays a key role: in the production of space, in the labour market, in the functioning of institutions. This has legitimated, among other things, the limited and sometimes controversial involvement of the state in several potential fields of intervention, including welfare, housing and planning, thus reducing direct state control on everyday life. The workings of the informal have contributed to urban problems for which Athens is notorious, but have left ""gaps"" where mechanisms of social integration could and have developed. Such gaps have made it possible, until recently, for women (and men) migrants to find a job and home, to establish themselves in their place of destination. Based on the premise that women migrants are not passive agents, but that they develop strategies of survival and actively seek to determine the terms of their settlement in the new environment, the paper argues that their numerous presence in many central neighbourhoods of Athens has contributed to the revitalisation of the inner city, by introducing new uses of its facilities, services, infrastructures and public spaces. Through interviews with Albanian women in Athens, the paper looks into three spatial levels, neighbourhood, city, trajectory, and seeks to understand the links between gender and experiences of/in space.	en
heal.journalName	Espace-Populations-Societes	en
dc.identifier.issue	3	en
dc.identifier.spage	373	en
dc.identifier.epage	385	en