26
The day’s movements, experiences, and avoidance strategies are often shared
between lookouts that are friends, who work the same or overlapping areas, or who meet
en rout to pick up goods or to sell. In cases where an area becomes too dangerous,
mobile phones are used to disseminate a warning message. I found this phenomenon
incredible, not only in terms of coordination, but also because of the degree of local
knowledge required to be successful. This population possesses urban navigational skills
that I - a person who has spent many years in Greece and who speaks the language
fluently and can read street signs, directions, and maps with ease - could only dream of.
Undocumented migrants like Jigo even know official and unofficial Greek place-names
within the city which they use interchangeably with their own.
It should be noted that despite all this it is common for vendors to be arrested and
ticketed, although the loss of a few workers and the confiscation of their inventory is
typically accounted for by the group which purchases or borrows goods to sell according
to these risks. With the exception of Jigo who by all accounts had been very lucky up to
that point, every vendor I spoke with had been detained by the police at one time or
another. Most spent time in jail, some were released after only a few hours, still others
were beaten while in custody26 and spent several weeks recovering with friends before
returning to work. Instances of violence against migrants in custody are not usually
reported by the media despite public interest.
One can see how the individual’s relationship with the city would be shaped by
these groups and, ultimately, the collective. If one’s sole opportunity to work, one’s
safety (from the police, trouble-making Greeks, thieves, etc.), and movement through the
city were informed by these networks, one’s impression of Athens and understood
26 For more on police attitudes toward migrants see Antonopoulos (2006a).