Η πρόσληψη και η αντιμετώπιση του «Άλλου» στη σημερινή Ελλάδα

Abstract

This is a short presentation of a research project conducted in 1993. This project examined the attitudes of the Greek population towards minorities and tried to explore perceptions of «aliens» and foreigners in the country. The study was based on a national survey conducted by the research team. The survey was designed to cover the entire Greek adult population (over the age of 18) and the respondents were chosen randomly by quota sampling on the basis of a nearly complete geographical distribution. The survey focuses primarily on the perception of aliens in Greece and contains some of the questions used by Eurobarometer. The latter was considered necessary so that the findings of the study should be comparable with those of Eurobarometer.

The survey results show that there has been a rapid change of attitudes among Greeks vis-a-vis minorities. This change is identified not as a shift of attitudes towards an old issue (i.e exististing minorities) but rather as the articulation of new attitudes towards the recent influx of foreigners in to country. This is particulary clear because research was conducted in a period of turmoil which coincided with an unprecedented immigration of foreigners which in turn has greatly affected public attitudes. Thus, Greeks seem to be passing rapidly from a stage in which foreigners were ignored and/or tolerated to a stage of rejection and /or intolerance.
This project has brought to the fore the dynamic of the changing attitudes of the Greek population towards foreigners as well as a number of issues which need a diachronic rather than a synchronic approach. This, in combination with the continued fluidity of the assumed causes of these attitudes (i.e regional turmoil and the increasing influx of newcomers to the country), cries out for the constant monitoring of attitudes in the region through similar and even expanded studies of a comparative nature.