Encountering and Mobilising Senses of (Non)Belonging Among Asylum Seekers in Greece

This book examines how musical engagements shape daily life while seeking asylum, connecting fragmented life trajectories, building cross-cultural relationships, maintaining personal identity, and creating transformative moments. By exploring musicking within the broader sonic and material environments of asylum seekers' lives-contrasted against the constraints of refugee status and legal uncertainty-the study reveals music as a space of hope emerging from participants' creativity and aesthetic expression. It traces how individuals navigate complex feelings of belonging and (non)belonging, shifting focus toward understanding precarity and resilience. Encountering and Mobilising Senses of (Non)Belonging Among Asylum Seekers in Greece: Refugees Musicking contributes to reconstituting our understanding of the major discourses around (forced) migration. This book contributes to the following fields of study: Refugee and Migration Studies; Ethnomusicology of Migration; Anthropology of Migration; and Anthropology of Music.

Chrysi Kyratsou is Anthropologist of Music, Sound, and Migration, currently working as a researcher at the University College Dublin School of Social Policy, Social Work and Social Justice. She is Affiliate Fellow at the Centre for Creative Ethnography, Queen's University Belfast. Chrysi's research explores the concepts of encounters, including, sharing, (non)belonging, and how musicking facilitates them, as well as allows us to get novel insights into them. She recently edited a Roundtable on Voice and Agency (Royal Musical Association Research Chronicle 56), co-edited a Special Issue (with Noel Salazar) on Navigating hurdles and reconfiguring (im)mobilities in times of corona (Critique of Anthropology 44:4), and a Thematic Issue (with Alix Sarrouy) on Music Education Among Refugee and Migrant Youths: Sharing, Belonging, Including (Music and Arts in Action 9:1).

Introduction: an ethnography of encounters and desires to (non)belong 1 Everyday life sounding, regimes of silence crumbling 2 Learning music, teaching music 3 Making music: orchestrating modes of (in)audibility and (in)visibility 4 Listening to, listening with Epilogue