Refugees’ Right to the Common Space

The refugee in his or her essence challenges the modern dynamic of the nation-state and its relation with territory and sovereignty, challenging the identity of the citizenry and appealing for reformed political arrangements. In the last decade, the war-ravaged countries in the Middle East and Africa have generated an unceasing exodus of refugees and asylum seekers across the borders of Europe. Greece, being one of the first European countries within reach, has served as a crossing point, with over a million refugees entering the country since 2015, around 90,000 of whom are currently stuck within the country, living in dire conditions. Focusing its research on Exarcheia, a unique and distinct neighborhood in the heart of Athens, the project aspires to reproduce an alternative common space that allows refugees to claim spatial justice and visibility as well as a right to the city and to adequate housing – a common space that raises refugees from the status of ‘abject victims’ to ‘activist citizens’ who participate in the production of the urban space. The project proposes an intervention in four neighboring yet disconnected spaces, each with a typology of its own – spatially, functionally and socio-politically. By recreating connectivity and commonality, these spaces provide a common space containing dwellings, opportunities for work, self-production and self-economy, as well as scenes for encounters, conventions, negotiation, decision-making and commoning.