Refugees musicking: meanings and encounters in Greek reception centres

It employs the notion of ‘encounter’ as analytical lens. By focusing on encounters actualised through active engagement with music, the thesis attempts to show the ways in which the notion of ‘encounter’ shapes our understandings of major discourses around migration.<br><br>The thesis considers musicking occurring in formal and structured contexts (music lessons and concerts on-site and online) and in informal everyday contexts (listening to music in-group and by oneself/ in-public and privately, and rehearsing).

It shows how musicking plays a decisive role in re-structuring asylum-seeking-induced limbo. Furthermore, it shows the decisive role of musicking in space- and place-making amidst the cramped, segregated, and marginalised settings of reception centres. Finally, it shows the multifaceted ways in which musicking fosters encounters and re-negotiations of socio-cultural borders among the participants (asylum seekers of various origins and/or people of the host society working/volunteering in reception centres). <br><br>The thesis puts forward the argument for the fundamental role of musicking in creating potentials for multiple inclusions. it emphasises the contested nature of inclusion(s) and the decisive role of agentive individual action, by explaining refugees’ own strategies to negotiate (non-) belongings, as unfolded on the everyday navigation of structurally imposed hurdles.