Guest: Thanasis Tyrovolas, PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
Duration: ~20 minutes
This episode features a conversation with Thanasis Tyrovolas, a social geographer and PhD candidate at the Department of Sociology, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. His research examines migration governance, humanitarian infrastructures, and the political economy of refugee camps, focusing on the socio-spatial transformations that followed the so-called refugee crisis in Greece after 2015. He also works on migration and mobility through a gendered and socio-spatial lens, with particular attention to survival strategies, including transactional sex, in contexts of forced displacement, combining academic research with extensive NGO experience in camps and urban settings.
Drawing on his research and field experience, Tyrovolas outlines three main phases of the refugee response in Greece. The discussion begins with the period of emergency reception, when Greece functioned primarily as a transit country, followed by a phase of stabilization and system-building after the EU–Turkey Statement. The conversation then turns to a third phase marked by state-led consolidation and increasing securitization, particularly after the election of New Democracy in 2019.
A central theme of the episode is the political economy of migration management. Tyrovolas reflects on the methodological difficulties of researching EU funding mechanisms, describing the funding landscape as institutionally opaque and constantly shifting. He highlights the challenges of tracing financial flows between the European Union, the Greek state, and international NGOs, raising broader questions about transparency, accountability, and governance.
The discussion also addresses the distribution and impact of humanitarian funding. Tyrovolas argues that the substantial resources allocated to the refugee response could have been used more effectively through long-term investments in housing, education, and healthcare, rather than being treated primarily as emergency procurement.
The conversation concludes with a retrospective reflection on Greece as a testing ground for European migration policy—simultaneously a humanitarian laboratory and a political buffer zone—leaving behind ambivalent legacies, including enduring grassroots solidarity initiatives.
More information can be found here:
- Lafazani, O., & Tyrovolas, T. (forthcoming). Continuities between the financial and refugee crisis: Management and resistance. In R. Samaddar (Ed.), The City as the Southern Question (Alternatives to Capitalism series). Routledge. (Expected 2026)
- Lafazani, O., Kyramargiou, E., Kapokakis, A., & Tyrovolas, T. (2025). One century, two refugee crises in Greece: De-nationalising the past / de-naturalising the present. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1080/1369183X.2025.2595291
- Heidari, S., Whitacre, R., Usta, J., Caglar, M., Tyrovolas, T., Rajan, A., & Onyango, M. A. (2024). Liminality and transactional sex among queer refugees: Insights from Lebanon, Turkey, Greece, and Switzerland. Journal of Refugee Studies. https://doi.org/10.1093/jrs/feae047