‘Lakeeran’ The Lines Between Us: Experiencing and Undoing Borders Among South Asian Migrant Men in Greece

This talk looks at undocumented Bangladeshi, Indian, and Pakistani low-class male migrants working as flexible agricultural labourers in Greece. It analyses the role of various identifiers and histories of encounters they internalise and embody as borders in the neutral transition space of Greece. They are marked by migrant precarity due to their undocumented status and by a flattened South Asian racialized masculine identity. Collectively othered, they struggle with internal divisions caused by colonial and post-colonial encounters, national identities, religion, and masculine expectations.

How do relational hierarchies of masculinities operate within this disparate group of men as borders? What role does the Greek state and their Greek employers play in reinforcing borders among their male workers? Does masculine encounters and masculine negotiations bring ruptures in border-making?

Reena Kukreja is Assistant Professor in the Department of Global Development Studies at Queen’s University. She is cross-appointed to the Department of Gender Studies and the Cultural Studies Program. She divides time between teaching, research, and filmmaking. She has published in Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, Modern Asian Studies, Journal of Intercultural Studies, and Men & Masculinities.

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