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This project is the product of three years of work with an international non-governmental organisation, during which time I helped identify and support vulnerable asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in camps in Greece by enabling their access to services such as accommodation. This PhD tackles the questions and discomforts I had in my work, for instance, why do we so readily accept some groups and individuals as vulnerable or in need of more support than others? The project is an amalgamation of many conversations with colleagues, humanitarians, and, importantly, single male asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants who regularly voiced the difficulties they faced in being identified as vulnerable and consequently, getting the support they were theoretically entitled to. At its core, the project seeks to understand how humanitarian actors in Greece define and operationalise the concept of vulnerability and how this impacts single male asylum seekers. This puzzle remains relevant today as it was in 2015 during the peak of the so-called refugee/migration crisis. Greece continues to be an entry point to Europe for people fleeing conflict and instability from countries such as Afghanistan, Palestine, Somalia, and Sierra Leone. With continuing arrivals, the level of individuals’ vulnerability emerged as an organiser of scarce resources in camps and across asylum provision by state and non-state actors. Vulnerability criteria have been established both by state and non-state actors to distinguish groups based on their health, sexual orientation, family structure, disabilities, and more. Vulnerability determines the support provided to individuals, as vulnerable individuals are the target of protection activities. Additionally, vulnerability is used to manage people's movement across camps and cities, and more widely in Greece and Europe. Consequently, vulnerability has emerged as a system of governance through which people are organised, treated, and contained.
The belief that some individuals and groups are vulnerable is not a novel idea. Indeed, some individuals are recognised as being vulnerable due to their legal status, for instance, as an irregular person who lacks the necessary documentation to grant them entry into a territory. Others are recognised as vulnerable due to their ‘inherent’ characteristics, such as their gender. However, in recent years, the concept of vulnerability has increasingly grown in prominence in legal and policy settings. Accordingly, UNHCR and IOM, both prominent actors in migration management and response, gradually adopted the concept of vulnerability. By the 2010s, humanitarian actors started assessing populations and individuals based on vulnerabilities to focus attention and resources. In light of the growing importance of vulnerability, this project investigates the politics of vulnerability in Greece. In particular, I examine how a system based on vulnerability is being operationalised and understood by humanitarian actors, and the impacts it has. The project focuses on highlighting the experiences of single male asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants who face difficulties in having their vulnerabilities recognised and responded to. Additionally, the project investigates the role of vulnerability in ongoing framings of refugee, asylum seeking, and migrant men as security threats to Greece and Europe. To this end, the method of this project entails semi-structured interviews both with humanitarian service providers and single male asylum seekers, refugees, and migrants in Greece. Ultimately, the project seeks to highlight how vulnerability is understood by humanitarian actors, the importance of the concept as an organiser of scarce resources, and the consequences of providing support based on vulnerability.