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The coalescence of the individual and the collective is evident in the above
examples. The larger group serves to buffer the individual against his or her toxic
environment: on a physical level by helping newcomers meet basic human needs; a social
level through informal support networks; and on an existential level by reconciling reality
with the dreams, plans, and expectations migrants feel are at risk in Greece and by
providing answers to moral questions. At the heart of the collective are a knowledge
structure and a guiding sense of reason that are common to each individual and which
unite the group and maintain a particular safe and productive relationship with the outside
world. It is important to underscore the role suffering plays within this social group. As
the experience of near total hardship is common to every individual within the collective,
the response to it, that is the strategic actions taken by its members and the perspectives
they adopt as a result, interweaves the individual evermore completely with the larger
suffering social group (Kleinman 2000:238-239). Suffering drives the individual to the
collective, informs the functioning of the collective itself, and contributes to keeping its
members together. This can be seen as an agglomerating factor operating in addition to
the force of attraction OfHabermasian collectivity based on communicative reason. The
two forces are complementary and mutually enabling. Of course, it would be folly to
assume that Jigo and his friends are not agentive, even as suffering pushes them together
and communicative reason facilitates their intersubjective bonds. Granted, Jigo was a
victim of error and had to rebalance under difficult circumstances, with limited resources,
and despite a restricted possibility for creativity (this theme is explored most notably by
Masco 2006; Petryna 2002). However, while struggling in Athens, Jigo nonetheless
retained his faculty for reflexive subjectivity and was certainly able to consider his
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