Rethinking Roma Integration Through Athens’ First Christian Roma Neighborhood

A new study in Comparative Migration Studies reconceptualizes Roma integration in Greece through the history of Agia Varvara, the first Christian Roma, or Tsiggani, neighborhood in Athens, founded after the compulsory population exchange between Greece and Turkey in 1923. The research, authored by Elektra Kostopoulou and published open access on 27 October 2026, draws on oral-historical fieldwork conducted in 2023 and 2024 together with archival material from both states.

The paper compares the trajectory of the Greek Gypsies with that of other exchanged communities across roughly a century of upheaval. According to the abstract, dominant frameworks tend to read incomplete integration as failure or victimhood. The study instead recasts it as agency, describing alterity performed as strategic non-compliance, and as collective representation rooted in communal socioeconomic survival.

Central to the analysis is the concept of “sentient diachrony,” which the author advances to theorize self-determination through the lens of self-authorship rather than state-granted status. This framing situates both the 1923 exchange and contemporary dynamics within a wider critique of the role played by hierarchical biopolitics in shaping modern international law.

The neighborhood’s stories, the paper argues, stem not only from displacement but from enduring patterns of regional resilience that the author links to the defiant self-authorship of the global subaltern. As an early-release, peer-reviewed accepted article, the version published is citable and carries a permanent DOI, subject to further edits before the final Version of Record appears.

Subject of Research: Historical and oral-history research on Roma integration and self-determination in Greece after the 1923 Greek-Turkish population exchange

Article Title: The population exchange of 1923, self-determination, and the “Greek Gypsies”

Article References: Kostopoulou, E. (2026). The population exchange of 1923, self-determination, and the “Greek Gypsies”. Comparative Migration Studies. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40878-026-00598-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s40878-026-00598-5

Keywords: Roma, Greece, population exchange, 1923, Agia Varvara, self-determination, oral history, biopolitics, migration studies, Athens, population, exchange