51
learned to. Third, the lack of distinct ghettos in Athens (see Malheiros 2002)48 means it
is difficult to isolate this population spatially. True to a vision of rhizomatic existence,
the multitude of undocumented migrants in Athens is interconnected49 but has no center,
hierarchy, or organization in place or otherwise. Finally, many settled undocumented
migrants start families in the city, and their children - still not Greek citizens by law -
adopt an understanding of motion similar to that of their parents complete with an
understanding of safe zones, although sometimes with a lesser overall willingness to
move or impulse to remain invisible as they become involved in schools and other
rooting institutions and phenomena50. In Athens these family units are singular in their
tenuousness and disconnection from ancestry (the rhizomatic undocumented migrant is
anti-genealogical after all) but not community (both in the sense of being actively
connected and connected by virtue Ofbelonging to a common milieu in the Deleuze and
Guattarian sense [2003(1987)])51.
For my local Athenian consultants this connection between the undocumented
migrant and Athens is not obvious. At the most they had noticed an increase in this
population on the streets, on public transportation, and in the media: stories of
undocumented migrants being intercepted at the borders, smuggling rings being broken
48 Despite the fact that Mediterranean cities tended to have no socio-geographic distinctions due to the
nature of property construction and urban development, historically; ethnic segregation is nonetheless now
occurring. Athens is starting to show signs of ghettoization in places, although this is still a nascent
phenomenon. Areas like Kypseli and around Platia Victoria are becoming increasingly ghetto-like,
although not completely so.
49 Albeit not in the traditional sense by, for example, mobile phone as per the collective, but they are
interconnected by virtue of their belonging milieu.
50 Interestingly these children do not fit either category of local or foreigner, as imprecise and problematic
as those categories may be, but bridge these imagined exclusive groups, albeit with difficulty and still in a
tentative manner as these children are still not well integrated into the education system or other spaces
where they might explore a local identity for themselves.
ɔ' The children of these immigrants exemplify the need to move beyond devising categories of people who
move differently across landscape towards and Imderstanding of how mobility produces a variety of worlds
that, together, make up society (Clifford 1997; Ossman 2007a:14; Urry 2000).