{"id":28806,"date":"2021-04-01T13:45:00","date_gmt":"2021-04-01T10:45:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/eliamep.lncdoo.com\/i-elliniki-diaspora-se-enan-avevaio-kosmo\/"},"modified":"2024-08-28T11:06:04","modified_gmt":"2024-08-28T08:06:04","slug":"i-elliniki-diaspora-se-enan-avevaio-kosmo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.eliamep.gr\/en\/i-elliniki-diaspora-se-enan-avevaio-kosmo\/","title":{"rendered":"Greek Diaspora in an uncertain world"},"content":{"rendered":"

Greece\u2019s fiscal crisis has energized its relationship with its diaspora in the last several years, after decades of decline, as well as reshaping the diaspora itself due to the massive crisis-driven migration.<\/p>\n

Research institutes as well as individual scholars have addressed key aspects of the diaspora and homeland relationship prior to and during the crisis.\u00a0 South East European Studies at Oxford (SEESOX) established in 2015 the Greek Diaspora Project, a dedicated research unit which has applied the well-established diaspora and development literature to the Greek case, in the crisis and post-crisis years.<\/p>\n

The opportunities for synergistic research between University centers and think tanks located in Greece and abroad, in satisfactorily addressing this crisis-driven transformation of the diaspora & homeland relationship, are compelling. SEESOX and ELIAMEP have thus decided to collaborate so they can catalyse such synergies both between themselves and with universities in Greece and abroad.<\/p>\n

SEESOX\u2019s and ELIAMEP\u2019s joint endeavor will be resolutely comparative as well as cross-disciplinary, reflecting both the requirements of a highly advanced diaspora studies prospectus as well as the respective strengths of the two partners.<\/p>\n

You may read the paper in pdf here.<\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Introduction<\/h2>\n

This policy paper gives a short overview of the research opportunities, involving research centers located both in Greece and abroad, that relate to the study of the Greek diaspora & homeland relationship during the fiscal crisis and in the post-crisis period.\u00a0 The objective of this paper is to set the framework for the joint collaboration of SEESOX with ELIAMEP which aims at catalyzing comparative as well as multidisciplinary research, jointly undertaken in Greece and abroad, on the diaspora and homeland relationship.<\/p>\n

This paper includes the following themes. First, it identifies some of the key features of the fiscal crisis that had a transformative effect on the diaspora and homeland relationship. Second, it reviews the main research units engaged in diaspora studies in Greece as well as the work that SEESOX has done in developing the diaspora and development research agenda during the fiscal crisis years. Examples of the fruitful division of labour between research units and centers in Greece and abroad will also be mentioned, in that context.\u00a0\u00a0 Third, it indicatively reviews the comparativist context of research on the diaspora & homeland relationship from a mostly developmental perspective. Fourth, it identifies how the study of the diaspora and homeland relationship can advance through multidisciplinary interaction with five well-established research domains in Greece.\u00a0\u00a0 The brief concludes with the key aims of the SEESOX\/ELIAMEP collaboration in the study of the diaspora and homeland relationship.<\/p>\n

The impact of the Greek crisis and post-crisis era and the diaspora & homeland relationship<\/h2>\n

\u201c<\/em>Following Greece\u2019s entry in the European Community (EC) in 1981, the country became increasingly reliant on European transfers to sustain rising levels of affluence.<\/em>\u201d <\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Following Greece\u2019s entry in the European Community (EC) in 1981, the country became increasingly reliant on European transfers to sustain rising levels of affluence. The traditional importance of diaspora remittances declined in importance both relatively and absolutely. Despite or even because of entry in the EU, the Greek economy did not become highly competitive in international terms and remained inhospitable to outsiders, be they Diaspora Greek investors or purely foreign ones.[1]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0\u00a0 At the mass level, Greeks became among the least mobile populations in the EU and the diaspora experience had at least partly receded from the collective imagination of the resident Greek population.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cGreeks became among the least mobile populations in the EU and the diaspora experience had at least partly receded from the collective imagination.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The fiscal crisis completely transformed this state of affairs.\u00a0 The forceful, even brutal realization that Greece had to adjust in an internationally competitive economy, and the robust institutions that underpin international economic competitiveness, placed at the forefront the role of diaspora Greeks in all facets of Greek collective life: as well-capitalised investors or influential managers in multinationals capable of injecting much needed funding and know-how in the Greek economy; as highly accomplished academics with the skills and outlook necessary to revamp a sclerotic state higher education system; as knowledgeable technocrats willing to upgrade key aspects of state performance; as philanthropists, keen to throw a lifeline to cash-strapped but vital state and private, non-profit\u00a0 organisations in education, public health, social welfare and the arts.[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201c\u2026the fiscal crisis generated the third largest migration wave in Greece\u2019s bicentennial history as an independent nation-state, of close to half a million.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Concurrently the fiscal crisis generated the third largest migration wave in Greece\u2019s bicentennial history as an independent nation-state, of close to half a million<\/em>, mostly highly educated individuals, who emigrated by and large to EU countries such as Germany and the UK.[4]<\/sup><\/a> In effect, the crisis further critically intensified the ongoing brain drain of highly accomplished Greeks which had started earlier but acquired alarming proportions in recent years.[5]<\/sup><\/a> \u00a0This migration wave allowed a critical population cohort to acquire income, skills and values not readily available to crisis-hit Greece while at the same time denying them from their homeland in their capacity as taxpayers, citizens and economically active agents. As a corollary, the crisis-driven migration wave\u00a0 \u00a0put at the top of Greece\u2019s political agenda the ways through which the diaspora can be induced to reengage with Greece <\/em>via the institution of the expatriate vote[6]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

The research community on Greece\u2019s Diaspora & Homeland Relationship<\/h2>\n

The Institute for Migration and Diaspora Studies at the University of Athens has mostly focused, in the recent past, in immigration to Greece.\u00a0\u00a0 The Center of Intercultural and Migration Studies of the University of Crete, which is under the University\u2019s Department of Primary Education has been conducting very significant work on diaspora issues but with a specific focus on education. The University of Macedonia has also established a commendable track record on research on brain drain prior and during the crisis and on Greeks from the Former Soviet Union.\u00a0\u00a0 Scholars at the Center of Planning and Economic Research (KEPE), a year later also published a report which comprehensively relates this research agenda to the crisis-shaped context of diaspora & homeland interactions[7]<\/sup><\/a>. Individual scholars from other institutions, such as the University of Athens and Panteion University, have made important contributions on such issues as the diaspora and Greece\u2019s foreign policy and diaspora engagement at the subnational level. ELIAMEP has committed significantly both to the study of in-migration to Greece and to the brain drain phenomenon in Greece and South East Europe at large[8]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Relatedly, South East European Studies at the University of Oxford (SEESOX) responded to the challenge by setting up the Greek Diaspora Project in 2015, a research unit which sought to relate the wider diaspora and development literature to the Greek case.[9]<\/sup><\/a> Since then, SEESOX\u2019s Greek Diaspora Project has accumulated a significant body of work, within the diaspora and development taxonomy of economics, politics and philanthropy\/voluntarism, through the output of its research team and network of scholars. This diverse output, on diaspora & homeland relations, is comprised of edited volumes, discussion papers, conference contributions, surveys, policy reports, opinion pieces and blog entries. The main foci of this output have included brain drain dynamics, the drivers of the diaspora\u2019s political participation with Greece, transnational and diaspora philanthropy, the digital mapping out of diaspora associational actions and diaspora elite engagement with Greece[10]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n

As with the example of the Greek Diaspora at SEESOX, this type of work can be built upon both by scholars resident in important host countries of Greece\u2019s diaspora communities as well as by researchers resident in Greece.\u00a0 A variety of examples addressed below can illuminate the division of labour between research conducted abroad and in Greece, a division of labour that includes collaborative projects in terms of research design and implementation.<\/p>\n

BREXIT will one way or another affect the UK\u2019s Greek community and thus ultimately influence the latter\u2019s interaction with Greece.[11]<\/sup><\/a> US tax exemptions of cross-border philanthropic giving by US nationals affects the capacity of Greek-Americans to donate to institutions and causes in Greece. Germany\u2019s attraction to Greek medical professionals shapes the know-how and expertise that they might be able to bring back to Greece in the future.\u00a0 All these research subjects that relate to the host countries of Greece\u2019s three leading diaspora communities worldwide need to be complemented by additional research, on respectively: the drivers of Greek policy towards the interests of UK Greeks; the governance of state and non-profit organisations which seek or can access Greek-American philanthropy; and on the type of public health reforms that can induce Greek medical professionals to return to Greece or engage in brain circulation processes, if they choose to stay at such host countries as Germany for the long term.<\/p>\n

\u201cUniversity departments and research centers located in Greece, such as the ones mentioned above, possess an irreplaceable expertise if we are to enlarge our comprehension of the diaspora & homeland relationship in the fiscal crisis and post crisis era.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Importantly, University departments and research centers located in Greece, such as the ones mentioned above, possess an irreplaceable expertise if we are to enlarge our comprehension of the diaspora & homeland relationship in the fiscal crisis and post crisis era.\u00a0 Here are some more examples: Research on in-migration to Greece and on the educational institutions of the Greek diaspora can be productively applied to the issue of education of the children of fiscal crisis repatriates; experts on diaspora lobbying in the US are best positioned to analyse how Greece\u2019s fiscal crisis has affected the mobilizational aptitude of Greek-Americans on behalf of Greece\u2019s national interests; and scholarship on the assimilation of ex-Soviet Union Greeks in Greece is foundational to understanding patterns of their crisis-driven re-expatriation.<\/p>\n

Diaspora & homeland relations as a comparative phenomenon<\/h2>\n

As there is no state without a diaspora, diaspora studies are richly comparative at a global level.<\/p>\n

Indicatively, the term \u2018brain drain\u2019 was coined in the UK in the post WW II period and reflected concerns that the US, with its better funded universities, was attracting UK scientists in increasing numbers[12]<\/sup><\/a>. Likewise, political scientists specialising on the US, a country better known for the ethnic communities that it hosts rather than its own diaspora, have developed a robust literature on Democrat and Republican strategies designed to attract the US expatriate vote and political donations.[13]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The diaspora and development literature has as its main focus the relationship between diaspora communities in developed host states originating from developing homeland states.\u00a0 Migration from Central and South East European countries to Northern European countries is also a very significant phenomenon.[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThe issue of the diaspora vote has generated a substantial scholarly debate due to the rise of transnationalism worldwide.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The issue of the diaspora vote has generated a substantial scholarly debate due to the rise of transnationalism worldwide as has the development by various homeland states of state mechanisms and policies designed to harness diaspora resources to government and state priorities.[15]<\/sup><\/a> The concepts of social remittances and of institutional distance provide helpful tools with which to analyse the possibilities and limitations in the engagement of Greek diaspora scientists, technocrats and organisations in policy making in Greece.[16]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In the domain of the economy, we note work done on how diaspora portfolio investors might have differentiated risk perceptions from the generic international portfolio investor, on how diaspora networks in the IT sector have been critical to the development of homeland IT enterprises and, more generally, how the experience of present-day transnationalism confers structural power to elite diaspora businessmen and managers[17]<\/sup><\/a>. The literature on the role of diaspora communities in the export performance of homeland enterprises is also relevant as is that of the role of diaspora ethnic business networks in FDI taking place in homelands.[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cIn philanthropy we highlight the work done on Jewish-American philanthropy to Israel, by far the most well-researched category of diaspora philanthropic investment.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In philanthropy we highlight the work done on Jewish-American philanthropy to Israel, by far the most well-researched category of diaspora philanthropic investment, both in terms of comprehensiveness of the relevant surveys and the qualitative analysis of the dynamics shaping the relationship between the diaspora grantor and the homeland\u00a0 grantee,[19]<\/sup><\/a> More generally, diaspora philanthropy has engaged wider scholarly attention, drawing in an increasing number of diaspora and homeland pairings, from which research on Greek diaspora philanthropy to the homeland can benefit.[20]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Greece and its Diaspora: The need for multidisciplinary\u00a0 synergies<\/h2>\n

\u201c\u2026it is imperative that Greek diaspora studies link up with leading research domains in Greece.\u201d<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As important as the comparative perspective is, it is imperative that Greek diaspora studies link up with leading research domains in Greece, so that the diaspora & homeland interaction is studied from a genuine multidisciplinary perspective.\u00a0 Such complementarity is also the measure of the importance of research collaborations on the diaspora & homeland relationship, between such institutions as SEESOX and ELIAMEP. Indicatively, we select the following five disciplinary domains where SEESOX and ELIAMEP, together with other research centers and university departments, located in Greece and abroad, can catalyse important research\u00a0 work:<\/p>\n