GENDERED BORDERS OF THE EUROPEAN UNION: WOMEN IN MORIA REFUGEE CAMPS IN LESVOS, GREECE THROUGHOUT THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC

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  • West, Maura Kitchens
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Political Science
Abstract
  • This thesis examines the role of gender in European bordering practices and demonstrates the lived experiences and discrimination of women migrants in Lesvos, Greece before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. Utilizing a feminist geopolitical approach, the thesis will analyze how gender, race, class, ethnicity, and marital and parental status affect refugees and asylum seekers’ lived experiences in border spaces, particularly in Moria and Moria 2.0 refugee camps, demonstrating that gender is an overlooked analytical lens in border studies. This thesis will review how bordering practices disadvantage women migrants at every step of the bordering process, evaluating structural decisions made by the European Union (EU) and their drivers, which reproduce and deepen bordering structures and place refugees and asylum seekers in precarious situations. Within these spaces of uncertainty, women are the predominant victims of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV), experience heightened health issues both in transit and at destinations, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic, and their distinct privacy and space needs are not met. Using Europe’s formerly largest refugee camp, Moria camp in Greece, and the (re)construction of Moria 2.0 camp as a case study, the thesis will discuss EU decisions which overlook women’s experiences at borders, drawing on affirmative biopolitics to demonstrate women refugee and asylum seekers’ active survivorship in precarious situations, by demonstrating that ‘life goes on’ in Moria and Moria 2.0.
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  • In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
Advisor
  • Gökarıksel, Banu
  • Hooghe, Liesbet
  • Vachudova, Milada
Degree
  • Master of Arts
Degree granting institution
  • University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Graduate School
Graduation year
  • 2022
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