On this episode of the pod, my guest is Penny Travlou, a Senior Lecturer/Associate Professor in Cultural Geography and Theory (Edinburgh School of Architecture & Landscape Architecture, Edinburgh College of Art/University of Edinburgh). Her research focuses on social justice, the commons, collaborative practices, intangible cultural heritage and ethnography. She has been involved in international research projects funded by the EU and UK Research Councils.
For the past eight years, she has been working with independent art organisations in Colombia and most recently in the African continent to understand the commons from a decolonial perspective and to look at commoning practices within artistic forms while understanding the specificities of the commons rooted in various socio-cultural and geographical contexts. As an activist, she has been involved in a number of grassroots and self-organised initiatives on housing and refugees’ rights in Greece.
Show Notes
Greek Elections and the Rise of the Ultra-Right
Exarcheia and the Student Uprisings of 1974
An Olympic Tourism Plan for Athens
Mass Tourism Consumption in Exarcheia
Government Plans to Dismantle Local Social Movements
The Greek Golden Visa
AARG and Community Action Against Gentrification
Fortress Europe
When Will the Bubble Burst?
Advice for Tourists; Advice for Organizing
Homework
Penny Travlou University of Edinburgh Website
Transcript
[00:00:00] Chris: Good morning, Penny, from Oaxaca. How are you today?
[00:00:04] Penny: Very good. Good afternoon from Athens, Chris.
[00:00:07] Chris: So perhaps you could share with me and our listeners a little bit more about where you find yourself today in Athens and what life looks like for you there. You mentioned that you had local elections yesterday.
[00:00:19] Penny: Yes, I am located in the neighborhood of Exarcheia but towards the borders of it to a hill, Lycabettus Hill. And I am originally from Athens, from Greece, but I've been away for about 20 years, studying and then working in the UK and more specifically in Scotland.
So the last eight years, since 2015, I've been coming and going between the two places, which I consider both home. And yes, yesterday we had the elections for the government. So we basically got, again, reelected the conservatives, which are called New Democracy, which is a neoliberal party, but also government also with patriotic, let's say, crescendos and anti-immigration agenda.
And at the same time, we have first time, a majority in parliament of the, not even the central, but the right wing, in the Parliament. So it's 40%, this party and another three which are considered basically different forms of ultra- right. And one of them is a new conglomeration, from the previous, maybe, you know, or your audience Golden Dawn, which is a neo- Nazi party, which was basically banned and it's members went to us to prison as members of a gang, basically.
But now through, I don't want to go into much detail, managed to get a new party called the Spartans, which obviously you can think what that means, plus two more parties, smaller parties, which are inclined towards very fundamentally religiously and ethnic focus, meaning, you know, anti immigration.
And then it's the almost like the complete collapse of the radical left that is represented by Syriza. The Communist Party is always stable. You know, it's the fourth party. So anyway, we, it's a bit of a shock right now. I haven't spoken with comrades. Not that we are supporters of Syriza, but definitely change the picture of what we're doing as social movements and what it means to be part of a social movement right now.
So there will be lots of things happening for sure in the next four years with this new not government. The government is not new cause it's the current one, just being reelected, but the new situation in the Parliament.
[00:03:02] Chris: Hmm. Wow. Wow. Well, perhaps it's a moment like in so many places, to begin anew, organizing on the grassroots level.
You know, there's so many instances around the world and certainly in Southern Europe where we're constantly reminded of the context in which local governments and top-down decision makings simply no longer works.
And that we need to organize on a grassroots level. And so I'm really grateful that you've been willing to speak with us today and speak with us to some of these social movements that have arisen in Athens and Greece, in Exarcheia around the notions of immigration as well as tourism.
And so to begin, you mentioned that you've been traveling for the last half decade or so back and forth and I'd like to ask you first of all, what have your travels taught you about the world, taught you about how you find yourself in the world?
[00:04:02] Penny: Very good question. Thank so much for raising it because I won't say about my personal history, but my father was, actually passed away a couple of years ago, was a captain in the merchant Navy. So for me, the idea of travel is very much within my family. So, the idea of having a parent travel, receiving letters before emails from far away places was always kind of the almost like the imagination of the other places, but also reality.
So, when myself become an adult and moved to the UK specifically, to study and then work. This became my own work and my own life reality because I had dramatically to live between two places. So, it was almost this idea of not belonging and belonging. This concept from in both places, but also the specific type of research, because, I haven't mentioned that my day job is an academic. I am currently, equivalent in the United States will be associate professor in geography, but in the school of Architecture and Landscape Architecture. But the type of research I do request me to travel a lot. I'm looking on the idea of collaborative practices in emerging networks of artists, digital artists, specifically activists and trans-local migrants.
So what it means actually to connect and to collaborate and to share knowledge and co-produce knowledges. Actually knowledge travels. So everything in my life, in the last two decades is around this, let alone that my own PhD was about tourism. I was looking on tourist images and myths, myths in metaphorically speaking of representations of Athens before the Olympic Games of 2004.
So the journey and the travel and tourism is very much part of what I do in my day job, but also on other things I do personally. So what I learned through this is, first of all, maybe it's very common to say that without travel, knowledge doesn't travel.
So, how we basically do things and flourish and develop ideas is through the sharing and sharing travels very much. So, movement is totally important.
[00:06:37] Chris: I think that, for so many of us who have taken a critical eye and, and looked to the critical eyes around tourism and over tourism in the tourism industry, that there is this sense that things can be different and things must be different.
To find a way to look towards, as you said, some sense of collaboration, some sense of interculturality, some sense of working together so that our earthly movements can produce honorable connections and meetings as opposed to just this kind of flippant and flacid kind of turns style travel.
And so, I've invited you on the pod, in part, today, to speak about this neighborhood that you're in Exarcheia in Athens, in Greece. And you know, I imagine that many of our listeners have never heard of this, this neighborhood before, but many in Greece and many, many in Athens have, certainly. And I'm wondering if you could offer our listeners a little bit of background in regards to why Exarcheia is such a unique place and why it attracts so much attention politically in terms of social movements and also with tourists.
Mm-hmm.
[00:07:53] Penny: The history of Exarcheia is quite long in the sense with where it is in the very center of Athens. So if somebody basically get the Google map, you will see that the neighborhood is in walking distance from the Greek parliament. And Syntagma Square, which is another important square with regards to movements.
It became very known in later years in the 2010s due to not only riots demonstrations that happened in what we now call the square movement. It started from Spain, to put it this way, and then to Greece, as well, in Athens. So Exarcheia is very central, but also it was since, postwar, it was a bohemic neighborhood.
Lots of artists related to the left or at that point to communist party, et cetera, were living here, but also there were theaters, independent theaters, the printing houses. So we have a number still of Publishing houses that they are located in various parts of the Exarcheia neighborhood. So it has put its imprint into the Athenian urban history for quite a number of decades.
And when I say Communist party, the communist Party was not legal at the time, when we say postwar. But, we had people inclined towards the left, like intellectuals, et cetera.
Then with the dictatorship that happened in 1967-19 74, that's when first time really it gets, it's a real place in the political side of not only of the left, but also generally speaking of the political milieu and situation in Greece and abroad, and became very known due to the uprising, the student uprising against the dictatorship or otherwise, as we call it, junta in 1974, where here in Exarcheia is also the National Technical University of Athens, which is known also as a Polytechnic, where it was basically the uprising against the dictatorship with students basically rioting, but also died. So, it became an iconic part of the student movements since then in Greece. So, since the seventies.
People can Google search or YouTube. They will see various documentaries dedicated specifically to that student uprising. And through that, after the dictatorship, one thing which was added in the Constitution and now has changed with this current government is that for a number of decades, it was what we call the asylum.
That the police or the army cannot enter the university premises, and that's across Greece. So, students can occupy buildings. They can have, their own strikes, et cetera, without the police and or army entering. However, the Constitution changed a year ago. During the COVID period with the current government, the conservatives were basically they're not only say the police can enter if there is antisocial behavior happens within the university premises, but also that they will basically would like to have a police dedicated to university premises. Anyway, things are changing, but if we go back to Exarcheia and to your question, so since then the seventies, it became the neighborhood hub for the left and particularly for the radical left to congregate, to meet, to have social spaces.
And also that a lot of demonstrations start from this neighborhood. And also since late eighties, became also the center of the anarchist and anti authoritarian movement. Since 2015, it was also a hub for those let's say groups, initiatives dedicated to offer solidarity to the newly arrived refugees in Greece and Athens due to the Syrian conflict.
Yeah. So there is lots of facts related to why Exarchia has become iconic neighborhood with regards to social movements and definitely since 2015. The year of the election of the radical left as said, Syriza government at the time were attracted also more attention from abroad, from journalists and "solidarians," comrades, from international or transnational, social movements to come to Greece to see what was happening, to take part into the local movements and initiatives.
But also it was the deep time of the austerity crisis. So, we have austerity crisis and refugee crisis at the time,
...and tourism! How did that happen?
I was at that point here in 2015 is when I started coming in Athens and spending more time. And it was much more obvious that, first of all, before Athens, it was a completely different story with regards to tourism and specifically even before the Olympic games of 2004. People from abroad were coming, spending one or two days, nothing, just to visit the Acropolis and the other historical sites and museums and go to the islands. Was not basically considered as a beautiful city, as an interesting city. Or even as a modern city.
So if somebody wants to see, let's say, "Rough Guides" of that period, the way the city was described was, I remember very well, I think it was a rough guide, "a cacophony." That it was extremely ugly. 2004 basically is the first time that there is a definitely dedicated clear plan from the top, from the government and local authorities to think of Athens as a tourist product.
And they made some major plans. One is obviously that it's not about tourists, but it relates to tourism. It's the metro and it's the unification of the archeological sites and creating pedestrian zones, which makes it easier for people to walk through the different places. So slowly, we saw tourism getting, numbers like higher and higher.
Interestingly, the austerity crisis that you expected there will be a "no" for tourism became actually an attraction for tourism, first, because things were getting cheaper. And the crisis created this, actually, this opportunity in that sense. And secondly, that even the radical left government, Syriza thought that tourism is an industry that can top up the economic issues related or the economic, the financial deficiencies of the country.
So it created a series of possibilities for investment from people from abroad to invest in real estate that was matched with the beginnings of the short-let accommodation businesses, Airbnb and equivalent. So all these started slowly creating a fertile land of the right conditions for the tourist economy to flourish further. And to get tourist numbers up in such an extreme that in 2019, we reach full capacity in regards to accommodation. And I don't remember now that in numbers of millions of tourists who visited the country. So there's lots of factors which brought Athens to experience.
And of course, Exarcheia, specifically mass touristification, because Exarcheia is in the center of Athens. Very easy to come. Secondly, attractive because it's a vibrant neighborhood, not only because of social movements, because the tourists who come are not all interested in the political scene of the area, but mostly it's about consuming this very vibrant nightlife economy.
It's the art economy, which is related with the street art and basically night economy because it has a lot of cafes which have doubled. Nowadays is one of the most populated with Airbnb accommodation. Wow.
[00:16:56] Chris: Wow, what a history. It seems, from what I've read, from what I've seen, that Exarcheia was, perhaps summarize it in a single word, a kind of sanctuary for many people over the decades.
And and you mentioned the Olympics too, but certainly Barcelona as well had the Olympic Games in the last 30 years, and then you tend to see this similar result or effect or consequence after the Olympic Games in which the cities themselves in some cases are either abandoned in terms of infrastructure.
And so all of the billions of dollars that went into them seems to have been only for that month of the Olympic Games or in the case of Athens or, or Barcelona, perhaps, that it's created this unbelievable kind of spiraling out of, of economic growth, if you wanna call it that.
But certainly of gentrification, of exile and the increase in cost of living. Mm. And so in that regard, Penny, I'm curious, what have you seen in regards to the growth of tourism in Athens? How has it affected the people, the culture, and the cost of living there?
Hmm. What have you seen on that kind of street level? Cause we can talk about it on an economic level, right? Where we're kind of removed from the daily lives of the people, but what do you see in regards to your neighbors, your family, your friends that live in that neighborhood with you?
[00:18:18] Penny: Okay. I mean, first of all, I mean there is a lot of things that happen in Exarcheia and now it's clear there is also a strategy to completely dismantle the social movements. It's not like extreme to say that, but it's very clear and that's what the discussions now are focusing.
And it's important to say that because in order to do that, one of the ways is to basically disrupt the spaces, disrupt the space that this happens. And Exarcheia is not metaphorically the location that the social movements and initiatives are and happen,
but it is the first time that we see a plan, a strategy that if there is a future here, that through not anymore tactics, but strategies from the government and the local authorities, which also are conservative, in one sense.
So, to give you an example, Exarcheia neighborhood is identified by its square. The square. When we talk about Exarcheia, we talk about the Exarcheia Square, specifically, when you want to talk about movements. Not the things were happening on the square, but it's identification of the movements.
So, the government with the municipality decide that the new metro station in the Exarcheia neighborhood will happen on this square. So, through this, they block completely, they fence the square, so there's no activity in the square. So, this completely changes the landscape.
To put it this way, the imaginary of this landscape for the local residents, but also visitors. So, if you check the images, you will see, which is a reality, is a five meter fence. So it's definitely changes. So, I'm saying that cause somebody from the audience say, but "yes, it's for the metro. It's for the benefit of the people."
Of course it's for the benefit. But there were also Plan B and Plan C that was submitted by a group of architects and some of them academics from the university here to suggest that they are better locations in the area for the metro for various reasons. "No, the metro will def will happen in the Exarcheia Square."
And there is now a number of initiatives that they were dedicated to solidarity to refugees now are moving towards struggles and resistance against the metro. Mm, wow. And how tourism comes in, because you have the blocking of a central square, for a neighborhood, which is its center and then you see slowly, more and more businesses opening, pushing out or closing down all the more traditional local businesses, for opening businesses more related to tourism, like restaurants that they have a particular clientele, you know, of the food they promote, et cetera, which definitely dedicated to this particular clientele, which is basically foreigners.
The second thing that happens and has to do, of course, with gentrification. In the high rank of gentrification, we're experiencing aggressive gentrification, fast and changing the look and the everydayness of the neighborhood, is that since the Syriza, they make things much easier for foreign investors through what is called golden visa.
Mm-hmm. The golden visa is that in order for a non-European, non-EU national to be in Europe. And you need a specific visa, otherwise you can be only with the tourist visa for three months. In order to obtain a longer term visa of five years, 10 years, is this we call Golden Visa, where you can invest in the local economy, like in London, I don't know, in Paris.
Greece has the cheapest Golden Visa, which is until recently up to 250,000 euros. So imagine it's not a lot of money if you want to invest. So, people will start getting this visa by buying property, and obviously they want to make more money by converting these places into Airbnbs.
Mm-hmm. They started with individuals like, let's say me that I decide to buy a property in Paris, but now we have international real estate developers, like from China, Israel, Russia, Turkey to say a few and Germany, where they buy whole buildings, right. And they convert them to Airbnbs, not only for tourists, but also for digital nomads.
So, for your audience, for example, yesterday I was at an event and I was speaking to a young artist and the discussion moved, I don't know how to, "where do you live?"
I said, "I live Exarcheia."
He said, "I live in Exarcheia.
I asked, "Where?"
And he told me, "I live there. But I have big problems, because although I own the place through inheritance, I would like to move out to sell it, because the whole building, apart from my flat and another one has been bought by an international company and now my neighbors are digital nomads, which means I dunno who these people are, because every couple of weeks it changes. It's fully dirty. Huge problem with noise. Lots of parties. It's extremely difficult."
So, imagine that this changed. There are stories of this, a lot. The other thing that has happened in Exarcheia is young people, in particular, are being pushed out because the rents, as you understand, if somebody who wants to rent it for Airbnb then thinks in this mindset and something that was until recently, 300 euros. A one bedroom flat. Now it ends up in 500, 600 euros, where still the minimum sa salary is less than 700 Euros. Wow.
So people are being pushed out. I have lots of examples of people, and when I say young, not young in the sense of 20s, but also people in their forties that they are being pushed out. They cannot rent anymore, let alone to buy.
To buy, it's almost impossible. Yeah.
[00:25:04] Chris: Yeah. Almost everyone I talk to, doesn't matter where they live these days and not just for the podcast, but in my personal life, and of course with the people who I interview on the podcast, they say the same thing. This housing crisis, if you wanna call it that, because I don't know if it's an issue of housing, as such, but an issue of regulation, an issue of the lack of regulation around these things. And it's clear that so much of the issues around tourism have to do with hyper mobility and and housing. Yes. Or at least that's what it's become in part. Mm-hmm.
And so I'd like to ask you, Penny, I know you're also part of an organization named AARG! (Action Against Regeneration and Gentrification) in Athens. Mm-hmm. And so participating in the resistance against these consequences.
So I'd love it if you could explain a little bit about the organization, its principles and what it does to try to combat gentrification and of course the government and police tactics that you mentioned previously.
[00:26:12] Penny: Well, now we are in a turning point because obviously what are we going to do? It's like "day zero."
But we started in 2019. It's not an organization. It's an activist initiative. So, we don't have any legal status as an activist group, but came out of a then source of free space called Nosotros, which was located, and I explain why I use the past tense.
It was located in the very center of Exarcheia, in Exarcheia Square, basically, in a neoclassic building since 2005, if I'm right. And it was really like taking part in all the different events since then with regards to, you know, things were happening in Athens in particular, and the square movement later on during the austerity crisis years.
And it is also part of the anti-authoritarian movement. So, in 2019 a number of comrades from Nosotros and other initiatives in Exarcheia Square came together through recognizing that, definitely, since 2015 started slowly seeing a change in the neighborhood. On the one hand, we were seeing higher numbers of comrades coming from abroad to be with us in different projects with the refugees, but at the same time, as I said earlier, an attraction by tourism. And gentrification was definitely happening in the neighborhood; at that time, in slow pace. So it was easy for us to recognize it and to see it, and also to have discussions and assemblies to think how we can act against it.
What kind of actions can we take, first of all, to make neighbors aware of what was happening in the neighborhood, and secondly, to act against Airbnbs, but not only, because the issue was not just the Airbnbs. So in 2019 we started, we had a series of assemblies. We had events. We invited comrades from abroad to, to share with us their own experiences of similar situation, like for instance, in Detroit, that at that time we thought that it was the extreme situation on what happened with the economic crisis in US and the collapse of the car industry, not only with the impact in Detroit and in Berlin, which again, at the time, still in 2019, we felt that Berlin was experiencing gentrification very far beyond what was happening in Athens and specifically in Exarcheia.
So, that's in 2019. We had also actions that we start mapping the neighborhood to understand where Airbnbs were kind of mushrooming, where were the issues, but also in cases, because the other thing that was start becoming an issue was the eviction. At that time was still not as, for example, we were reading 2019 and before in Berlin, for example, or in Spain, like in Barcelona or Madrid...
but there were cases, so we experienced the case of a elderly neighbor with her son who is a person with disabilities who were basically forced through eviction from the place they were renting, for almost two decades, by the new owners, who were real estate developer agency from abroad, who bought the whole building basically, and to convert it to Airbnb, basically. So we did this.
Let's say this started in January 2019, where we just have elections and it's the first time we get this government, not first time, but it's the first time we have conservatives being elected and start saying dramatically and aggressively neighborhood with basically the eviction almost of all the housing spot for refugees in the area, apart from one, which still is here.
All the others were basically evicted violently with the refugees, were taken by police vans to refugee camps. Those who had already got the papers were basically evicted and sent as homeless in the streets, not even in camps. So, we basically moved our actions towards this as well.
And then Covid. So during Covid we created a new initiative were called Kropotkin-19, which was a mutual aid, offering assistance to people in need through the collection of food and things that they need, urgently, in the area, in the neighborhood, and the nearby neighborhood and refugee comes outside Athens.
So, AARG! Has basically shifted their actions towards what was actually the urgency of the moment. So, and what happened in all this is that we lost the building through the exact example of gentrification, touristification. The owners took it because obviously it's next to the square where it's actually the metro and the think, they say future thinking, that they will sell it with very good money, to the millions, basically.
So Nosotros and us as AARG! were basically now currently homeless. We don't have a real location because the building was basically taken back by the owners, and we were evicted right from the building.
[00:32:14] Chris: Well, this context that you just provided for me, it kind of deeply roots together, these two notions of tourists and refugees of tourism and exile.
In southern Europe, it's fairly common to see graffiti that says "migrants welcome, tourism go home." And in this context of that building, in that relative homelessness, it seems that, in a place that would house refugees, in a place that would house locals even, that this gentrification can produce this kind of exile that turns local people as well as, you know, the people who would be given refuge, given sanctuary also into refugees in their own places.
And I'm wondering if there's anything else you'd like to unpack around this notion of the border crises in Greece and Southern Europe. I know that it's still very much in the news around this fishing vessel that collapsed with some seven to 800 people on it, off the coast of Greece.
And certainly this is nothing new in that region. And I'm just wondering if there's anything more you'd like to unpack or to offer our listeners in regards to what's happening in Greece in regards to the border crises there. Mm.
[00:33:36] Penny: Okay. I mean, the border crisis, is Greece and it's Europe. So when you speak about national policies or border policy, you need also to think of what we call fortress Europe, because this is it. So Greece is in the borders and it's actually policing the borders. And, there's lots of reports even recently that quite a lot of illegal pushbacks are happening from Greece back to Turkey or in the case of this current situation with a boat with more than 500 people.
I think it's almost like to the 700. That's the case. So this current government it was for four years, we've seen that it has definitely an anti-immigration policy agenda, definitely backed up by European policies as well.
But now being reelected is going to be harder and this is a big worry for, because still we have conflicts nearby. We need to consider environmental crisis that it creates in various parts for sure, like refugees, and we have conflicts.
We have Ukraine, et cetera. Although also there is discussion of thinking of refugees in two ways: those that they come from, let's say, Ukraine, which they look like us and those who do not look like us. And this obviously brings questions of racism and discrimination as well.
So borders and tourism also. It is really interesting because these two are interlinked. We cannot see them, but they're interlinked. And even we can think in the widest, let's say, metaphor of this, that at the same week, let's say 10 days that we had this major loss of lives in the Greek Sea.
At the same time we have the submarine with the millionaires or billionaires, which almost is a kind of a more like upmarket tourism because also we need to think what the submarine represents symbolically to the life we are creating, worldwide.
And I'm saying worldwide because I was currently, and I think I talked with you, Chris, about it, in Latin America and specifically in Medellin, which is a city known mostly abroad for not good reasons, basically for the drug trafficking.
But one of the things, definitely post pandemic that the city's experiencing is massive gentrification and massive touristification due to economic policies that allow specific type of tourism to flourish through digital nomads having real opportunities there for very cheap lifestyles. Very good technology infrastructure, but other issues that bring mass tourism that in this case is also sex tourism and underage sex tourism, which is really, really problematic.
But going back to Athens and Exarcheia in particular, the issue, it's very obvious. We are even now discussing that this thing is a bubble and sooner or later we will see that bursting because tourism is a product. Tourist locations are products and they have a lifespan.
And it's particularly when there's no sustainable planning strategy. And an example in Greece, which is recently been heard a lot, is Mykonos Island. The Mykonos Island was known as this like hedonistic economy, up market, et cetera.
But right now it is the first year that they've seen losses, economic losses, that it doesn't do well on the number of tourists coming. So, there are these things that we will see.
Still, Athens is in its peak and they're expecting big numbers still because we are not even in July. I live now what most of us would say, we don't want to be in Exarcheia for going out because it doesn't anymore looks as a space we knew, for various reasons. But still there is movement. As I said the metro now is the center of the resistance. And also the other thing that I forgot to say that it's actually from the municipality coming in is that they are closing down and closed down basically green areas in the area, like Strefi Hill, and the nearby park for supposedly to regenerate it and to ensure that it's up in the level that it needs to be. But at the same time, they are leasing it into corporate private businesses to run.
[00:38:43] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. And just for our listeners, whether this is the intention of local governments or not the closure or at least suspension of these places such as parks or local squares is the refusal to allow people to use public lands or to operate on what are traditionally understood as the commons, right? Mm-hmm. And these are traditionally places that people would use to organize. And so whether this is a part of the government's plans or not this is the consequence, right?
And this tends to happen more and more and more as tourism and development reaches its apex in a place. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And Penny, I have a question that was actually written in by a friend of mine who lives there in Athens and his name is Alex who I had the pleasure of meeting last year there.
And Alex talks about how everyone in Greece seems to be involved in tourism in some manner or another, that it's according to him "the country's biggest industry and how all of us are bound and tied to it," he said. Mm-hmm. And Alex wonders what alternatives and perhaps worthy alternatives do you think there might be to tourist economies?
[00:39:59] Penny: Well, I mean, the issue is not, I mean, tourism is a type of model of tourism as well. I mean and it is also kind of percentages. So if we have more tourists than locals, then there is a question here, what exactly is happening when particular neighborhoods are turned to theme parks?
Then again, it's an issue of what exactly offered locals, because okay, it could be good for businesses, but as I said, where is the sustainability in these projects and these models? Because if it's five year plan, then after the five year plan, all these people who are involved in tourism, what are they going to do?
The other thing is what kinda tourism we're talking about and what kind services, because if we're all tangled or related with a tourist product, but what we do is servicing, meaning that even very few people will make money because most of us, we will be employees. And saying that is also about labor rights.
So this is actually not regulated. There is no real regulation to various levels. Housing, for example, that you touched upon, earlier on in the conversation... In Greece doesn't have a dedicated law. So housing comes in various different parts of law, but it doesn't have a dedicated one.
That's another reason why things are very unruly, unregulated. And the other thing is that in Greece, one thing that is unique, in comparison to all the countries, is that after the second World War, there was this idea of small ownership; that the dream is to own a small place, and to give it to your kids, et cetera.
So it is very, very complex in that sense. And also as a tenant, it's very difficult to basically to have rights as well. Likewise, when we talk about labor, there's lots of things which are not regulated. So people who work in the tourist industry... it's almost like slavery.
Quite a lot of people do not want to work right now in the tourism industry because they know that it's really unregulated and where that ends. So go back to what your friend asked, I'm not an economist and it's not an easy, and it's not, I'm not using it as an easy way to escape from giving a reply, but it's not about how to replace tourism, but it's actually what kind of a tourist model we bringing in because it's the same thing that I brought.
So in Greece what exactly are we actually looking as a model to bring things that we saw in other places, didn't work?
And they've seen the aftermaths of it. So this is something we need to be very, very serious about. Because at the moment, I think it's a five year plan with no future-thinking further because imagine a scenario that if tourism collapse, and we have all these businesses dedicated to tourism in one single neighborhood. We have urban Airbnb everywhere. What all these privately owned premises going to do? What kind of alternative you they're gonna have?
[00:43:27] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. You used the word " replace," to replace tourism and I'm a big fan of etymology of the study of the roots of words and in English, the word replace in its deepest meaning could mean "to place, again." Right. And if we understood the word place as a verb, and not just as a noun, not just as a thing, but as something we do, what would it look like to place again, to consider our place not just as a thing, but as a process, as a process through time.
And what would that mean to re-place ourselves. To re-place the time we're in. And it brings me to my next question, which is around solidarity and mm-hmm. I'm wondering in this regard, what kind of advice might you have both for tourists, for individuals, and also for people looking to organize their own communities in solidarity with, for example, the movements, the collectives, the residents of places like Exarcheia. What advice would you have for those people who wish to act and live in solidarity with the collectives that are undertaking these battles in places like Exarcheia?
[00:44:51] Penny: Okay. If I remember well, the initiative against the Metro has created an open letter which will be for also address to tourists. So to make them aware, you know, you are here, you are welcome, but be aware that this is happening in this neighborhood, that the neighborhood is not just a product for consumption, but they are us, that we live here and we have been hugely affected by policies against us.
It's not a blame to the tourists because we've been tourists and we are tourists ourselves. We go somewhere else. It's a matter to how you are respectful and understanding of what happens in local level and that there are people leaving not only the people who make money out of offering you services, but basically every people who have an everydayness in these areas and they need to be respected as well. And even understand where and what may happen to them. I mean, obviously we hear, and there are people who think, okay, we rather prefer to stay in hotels instead of AIrbnbs because this will basically support further this economy, which is platform capitalism because again, at the end, who makes more money, are the people who own those platforms.
So it's about to be conscious and to be open and to see around you. And I'm saying that, and I can give you an example because for me, it definitely summarizes what I want to say. Okay, last summer, I was out with friends in Exarcheia, near Exarcheia Square to have a drink with friends who were visiting. No, no one visiting. One is from here. And in another table comes a seller, a migrant from East Asia to sell something and stop in my table. We discuss something with him and behind him, a couple of tourists with a dog passed by. The dog stops, probably afraid of something and kind of barks and bites the seller, the guy who was actually the vendor.
So, the vendor gets really panicked and we say what happened to him? The two people with the dog, say, don't actually listen to him. He's lying. He's trying to get money out of us. And this is a story I mean, of understanding, of two people, you know, coming here not understanding at all and having completely this idea, but at the same time trying to consume what Exarcheia is offering. Is a story that to me can say a lot, actually. Mm,
[00:47:23] Chris: yeah. Deep imposition.
[00:47:25] Penny: Exactly. Exactly. I mean, as tourists, we need to be more conscious of the places we go. We need to understand and to listen and to hear.
It is difficult to do otherwise because I mean, when you go back to solidarity, I mean, this is another thing because we don't expect people who come for couple of days to go to different, let's say, collectives, initiatives and take part.
But at the same time, people who come and they want to spend time, in the sense of being part, again, one thing you do is not only you consume experiences, you take the experience and you look something abroad. You share the experience and we need that as well. Hmm.
[00:48:16] Chris: Wow. And what would you say to people, for example, in places like Oaxaca, where there's been a tourist economy for the last 10, 20 years, steadily growing, and then after the lockdowns has become a destination like cities in Southern Europe, for digital nomads, for quote unquote expatriates, where now the consequences of the tourist economy are reaching a boiling point a kind of crisis moment, and where people are experiencing a great deal of resentment and backlash against the tourist, but who want to find some kind of way of organizing together in order to lessen or undermine or subvert the tourist economies.
What advice would you have for those people maybe looking to places like Exarcheia, places like Southern Europe, where people have begun to organize for many years? What advice would you have for those people, for those collectives?
[00:49:21] Penny: Well, the prosperity out of what you can get from this type of economy, it's going to be short term. So those who will make money or those who anyway will make money for those who have small businesses, it's going to be for few years. And particularly with digital nomads, is exactly what the word the term means: nomads. So this year or this couple of years, they will be in Oaxaca, they will be in Medellin.
Previously they were in Lisbon. They were in Berlin. There is a product that is movable because their business, the work they do is movable. So for them, is what you offer like a package. And if it is cheap package, they will go there. If it has good weather, they will go there. And easier legislation.
So it's a matter of recognizing because at the same time you cannot start pushing and throwing and beating up tourists. You're not gonna change anything. It's basically awareness.
I'm not fond local authorities, but I've seen that in cases like Barcelona, the local authorities were more conscious and more aware, and obviously more on the left side. They were trying as well to create policies that has some limitation that at least this thing, it doesn't become beyond what you're able to sustain, basically, to create an equilibrium.
But still, even in Barcelona, there are situations as in the neighborhood, which has became totally gentrified and people were pushed out. So they need some kind of legislation to limit the numbers of visitors for Airbnbs or things like that. But in the level of action, it's actually awareness and resistance and to continue.
It's not easy because the political situation doesn't help. It has created a fruitful land for this to become even more and more and more. But the idea is not to give up and stop. I know that it's very like maybe generic and very abstract what I'm offering a solutions, because obviously here we're also trying to see what solutions we can have.
Maybe you create a critical mass in an international level. Also, you make aware outside of what happens. So, so the tourists before even coming, they're aware of what's exactly happening and also with regards to solidarity between similar causes. Hmm.
[00:52:00] Chris: Hmm. Thank you Penny. So we've spoken quite a bit about what's come to pass in Athens, in Greece, in Exarcheia in regards to tourism, gentrification, and the border crisis there in fortress Europe. And my final question for you is do you think there's anything about these movements of people and the way that we've come to understand them about the flight and plight of other people's, not just refugees, but also tourists as well, that can teach us about what it means to be at home in our places?
[00:52:40] Penny: Oh, that's a big discussion. Cause it depends. I mean, when you talk about mobile population, like those, for instance, digital nomads, then we talk about something else, which is basically a more cosmopolitan understanding of the world, but also that the world is a product for consumption. So, it is two different layers of understanding also home.
And basically when you see advertisements of houses specifically short-lets dedicated to let's say, digital nomads, the advertisements will say something like "home," that what we offer you like home. But when you go to those places and you stay in, what they mean like home, is that you have all the amenities to make your life easy as a digital normal.
That you have a fast internet to make your work easy, et cetera, et cetera. So it is a very complex thing and definitely the way we live in, it's between the nomadic that has nothing to do with how we understood the nomadic in previous centuries or histories and to their, place as home, like you have a stable place.
So, there are many questions and many questions about borders, that borders are easy to pass if you have the right profile, but then it is a block, and it's actually a "no" for those who leave home because they're forced to. So, it's a very unequal way of thinking of borders, home and place, worldwide.
It's not just about Greece or Athens or Exarcheia, but maybe Exarcheia is a good example of giving us both sides who are welcome and who are not welcome. So yes, we say "welcome to refugees" and we see this kind of tagging and stencils and graffiti around because yes, this is what we want. We want them here to welcome them, but at the same time, we say " no to tourism," not because we have individual issues with specific people, but because of what has been the impact of this mobility into local lives.
[00:54:59] Chris: Yeah. Yeah. Well, may we come to understand these complexities on a deeper level and in a way that that honors a way of being at home in which, in which all people can be rooted.
Mm-hmm. So, I'd like to thank you, Penny, for joining me today, for your time, for your consideration, for your willingness to be able to speak in a language that is not your mother tongue is deeply, deeply appreciated. And finally, how might our listeners be able to read more about your work, about the social movements and collectives in Greece?
How might they be able to get in touch?
[00:55:41] Penny: Okay. We have on Facebook, on social media, we have AARG!. So if they, look at AARG! Action Against Regeneration & G entrification, but it's AARG! on Facebook and also Kropotkin-19, they will find their information.
Now about my work specifically, they will look at my profile like Penny Travlou at the University of Edinburgh. So they will see what I do in Athens and in Latin America. So there is material, some things are in the form of academic text and other things are in videos, et cetera, which are more accessible to a wider audience.
[00:56:22] Chris: Well, I'll make sure all those links and social media websites are available to our listeners when the episode launches. And once again, on behalf of our listeners, thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:56:34] Penny: Thank you. Thank you very much. Have a good morning.
S4 #5 | The Many Faces of Exile in Exarcheia w/ Penny Travlou (Athens)