Principal Investigator: Dr Afroditi Koulaxi
Duration: December 2023 - September 2024
Overview
The research project delves into the immediate aftermath of Storm Daniel in Greece’s Thessaly region, focusing on its profound impact on citizenship, information poverty, and governance amidst a multifaceted climate-driven crisis that turned displaced citizens into refugees in their own country. Storm Daniel's aftermath resulted in severe consequences: internal displacement, loss of life, property damage, and ecological devastation. The crisis reshaped Greece's citizenship paradigm, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities (related to class, ethnicity, ability, and access to information) and vulnerabilities. The project aims to give voice to affected individuals, shaping the discourse on citizen-refugeeness, socio-spatial disparities, and crisis-driven internal displacement. The study explores the role of media and communications technologies in supporting and/or creating challenges for local communities in Thessaly and how these communities develop different (digital and non-digital) capacities to address the pressing issue of citizen-refugeeness – the novel citizenship regime emerging in Europe as a result of climate change.
In particular, the project examines the following set of ethico-political questions:
- How do local communities experience displacement and a state akin to refugeeness in their own country?
- What are the implications of this new citizenship regime, and how is it managed digitally?
- How do media and communication technologies support and/or create challenges for local communities?
This research is expected to contribute to the fields of citizenship and refugee studies, media and communications, and disaster management by shedding light on the unique challenges posed by Storm Daniel in Greece within a context of increasing climate-related challenges. The study aims to provide valuable insights into the reconfiguration of citizenship regimes during times of crisis and the role of digital technologies in addressing the condition of internal displacement as it currently takes place.
This interdisciplinary project seeks to examine the successes and failures of citizenship-refugeeness in the context of crisis management, especially in terms of identifying the risks and opportunities of crisis governance and related policies for internally displaced citizens. It seeks to explore and theorise citizen-refugeneess, socio-spatial inequalities and state-related pathologies that foster vulnerabilities and internal displacement in crisis-ridden regions.
*Funding: LSE Urgency Grant Scheme
Publications
“Bridging the digital divide: addressing digital inequalities among climate refugees” by Afroditi Koulaxi and Maria-Christina Vogkli at Media@LSE blog
Conferences
- Digital inequalities among climate refugees by Afroditi Koulaxi at SMiD 2024 “Media (and) sustainability: Crises, paradoxes and potentials” Conference, Copenhagen (2-3 May)
- Citizen-refugeeness: internal displacement and digital order in Greece's Storm Daniel" by Afroditi Koulaxi at the 2024 Oxford Migration Conference, Oxford (14-15 May)
Research Team
Co-investigator
Maria-Christina Vogkli, Guest Teacher, LSE Sociology Department; Research Officer, LSE PhD Academy