In January 2017, more than half of the parents of primary school students in Perama submit transferring applications for their children in the middle of the school year, due to the upcoming arrival of 20 refugee students from the nearby camp of Schisto. The above referred parents take steps in order to prevent the lesson attendance of the refugees at their school. In a protest gathering taking place out of the school building, members of the political party Golden Dawn (Chrisi Avgi) take part, led by the ex parliament member Yannis Lagos. The incident is covered by Mass Media, which characterize those parents as racists.
Through an analysis of interviews given by some of the mothers asking for transferring steps, in this dissertation an attempt is made to highlight the ways mothers themselves make sense of their action, by constructing the refugee classmate as an unwanted person. In the regard of Critical Discursive Psychology (Wetherell, 1998), we examine the Interpretative repertoires that introduce that refugee student and the Subject positions that these mothers place themselves as they talk about him.
In this analysis it is obvious that these research subjects use arguments taken from widely used discourses concerning the “refugee crisis” and the production of subjects within this “crisis” situation. By mobilizing Interpretative repertoires that introduce the Neo-orientalist and Neo-racist discourse, mothers manage their identities, always in accordance with the construction of a dangerous Other, attributing their action to the feeling of fear that this Other may evoke to them. The aim of this project is to investigate the function performed by the management of specific Interpretative repertoires, in conjunction with the arousal of the “irrational” discourse on emotions in the formation of a rational argument.