Fleeing Iran with her husband and toddler, Amena Namjoyan reached a rocky beach of this eastern Greek island along with hundreds of thousands of others. For months, their arrival overwhelmed Lesbos. Boats fell apart, fishermen dove to save people from drowning, and local grandmothers bottle-fed newly arrived babies. Namjoyan spent months in an overcrowded camp….
NPR’s Scott Simon talks with journalist Jeanne Carstensen about her new book, “Greek Tragedy,” about the wreck of a ship filled with refugees off the Greek coast in 2015. SCOTT SIMON, HOST: Almost 10 years ago, a horrific boat accident was in world news, briefly. An old wooden boat built to hold just a few…
In 2016, a rising migration wave swept the Mediterranean area with numerous overcrowded makeshift transport boats crossing the Aegean Sea, with most arriving in Greece and thus, certain European countries started to close their borders. As a result, many refugees became trapped in northern Greece, unable to continue via the Balkan route to countries further…
This study aims to use a rich, millennia-long anthracological dataset to observe the role of Olea europaea L. in the Early and Middle Holocene woody vegetation used by prehistoric groups in the circum-Aegean area. A synthesis of previous and new data obtained in the context of ERC project PlantCult, reflects variations in the distribution and…
This summer, I spent two months on the island of Lesvos, Greece, the setting of the National Science Foundation-sponsored Pollinators, Climate Change, and the Aegean Archipelago Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU). Our team of seven students and four senior researchers from various backgrounds in the U.S. worked to untangle the interacting stressors impacting bees in…
In this work, combined efforts by Greek and Turkish scientists produced an updated validated NIS inventory of the Aegean ecoregion, covering 120 years of records up to August 2024. Of the 342 NIS currently present in the Aegean Sea, the majority (281 species) have invaded the South Aegean, followed by the North Aegean (128 species…
Since the summer of 2015, the Greek island of Lesvos has been centre stage of the so-called refugee crisis and one of the sites where new EU policies for migration control have been tested and implemented. This combined study of jurisprudence with ethnographic fieldwork aims to understand the impact of the asylum regime on the…
This article centres the everyday resistance practices by illegalised migrants contained in EU hotspots in Greece. Set against the regime of violent abandonment governing these carceral spaces, the article draws on ethnographic research in the Aegean archipelago to explore how resistance is enacted, experienced, and suppressed. The analysis foregrounds three distinct tactics of resistance –…
Under the threat of the climate crisis, renewables are an alternative that are aligned to European principles for clean energy and green transition strategies. Past studies have shown that the Eastern Mediterranean will present notable short- and long-term wind speed variability due to climate change. In this context, this study investigates the mean changes in…
The illegal practice of border pushbacks by sea along Greece’s borders has become standardised and normalised despite the severe human rights violations associated with it. Refugees and asylum seekers subjected to border pushbacks endure numerous forms of abuse, including physical, emotional, and verbal violence, which exacerbate the trauma from their perilous journeys in search of…