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Asylum Is Unavailable

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Between 2014 and 2022, asylum seekers on mainland Greece had to initiate claims by calling the government on Skype, yet their calls were rarely answered. Written in Athens alongside asylum applican...
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  • 22 September 2026
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Between 2014 and 2022, asylum seekers on mainland Greece had to initiate claims by calling the government on Skype, yet their calls were rarely answered. Written in Athens alongside asylum applicants as they called and called without reply, this book uncovers an eight-year human rights abuse that has never been documented. Stephen Damianos exposes how a mundane telecommunications platform became a powerful instrument of exclusion and erasure, immersing readers in Kafkaesque abandonment. Advancing the concept of “digital pushback,” he demonstrates how governments increasingly use unspectacular tools to generate spectacularly violent realities with little to no accountability. Asylum Is Unavailable provides a vivid portrait of human suffering and an urgent warning about embracing technology at the expense of humanity.

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Price: $29.95
Pages: 284
Publisher: University of California Press
Imprint: University of California Press
Series: Critical Refugee Studies
Publication Date: 22 September 2026
Trim Size: 9.00 X 6.00 in
ISBN: 9780520425293
Format: Paperback
BISACs:

Stephen Damianos is Executive Director of the Neurorights Foundation and Lecturer in Ethics and Public Policy at Cornell University.

Contents

List of Illustrations and Table

1. “Asylum Is Unavailable”
2. Digital Pushbacks
3. Ghosts Among People
4. The Skype State
5. Hanging Up
6. Still Waiting

Acknowledgments
Notes
References
Index