Individual Attitudes and Settlement Perspectives of Refugees in Greece: The Case of Samos Island

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript “Individual attitudes and settlement perspectives of refugees in Greece: The case of Samos Island” deals with an important and under-researched subject of refugee attitudes towards the reception country and their intentions of staying. The paper offers insight into relevant statistical data and results obtained through a survey of refugees settled in the Closed controlled reception facility. The manuscript is clearly written and corresponds to the usual structure of scientific publishing. The abstract and title correspond to the article content, however, there are some suggestions which could contribute to the paper’s even more relevant contribution to the researched subject.

 

Firstly, I advise abandoning the usage of terms such as “flows”, and “inflows” since they are conceptual metaphors which characterise refugees as some sort of natural impediment and it has been debated to use more appropriate terms such as movement, arrival, patterns etc. (https://mixedmigration.org/op-ed-negative-narratives-mistaken-metaphors-the-need-for-careful-language-on-migration/).

 

Secondly, there is a lack of general context of refugee status approval procedure and integration policy in Greece. How long average does this procedure take, is there any difference between the analysed facilities in Samos and other places in Greece, what is the rate of asylum approvals, how many of the refugees actually live in Greece? Adding the paragraph with these contextual data would contribute to a better understanding of the attitudes expressed by refugees themselves. Maybe the authors could consider referent to the UNHCR report on Greece – written by Marine Casalis et al. (https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/106568) which also uses survey methods and reports on different aspects of migrant/refugee integration in Greece. These data could also be used as the point of reference for the results obtained within the reported survey.

 

The results are presented objectively and logically. Some minor suggestions are referring to some of the results.

- On page 6, line 268, the sentence “educational level of the surveyed population is not particularly high.” should be moved to the next paragraph which deals with Education and employment.

- On page 8 title 3.1.4 The condition of the refugees today is not clear what it means

- On page 10, line 384 the authors state that “that third-country nationals have not experienced acts of racism and xenophobia”, however, some portion of them do report so, I would advise mellowing down the statement and say e.g., that third-country nationals mostly have not experienced…

- On page 11 it would be interesting to see the mean values of satisfaction attitudes presented in Graph 2 – authors even conclude that “Many tend towards moderate satisfaction in all the above” but it cannot be concluded only from frequencies.

- On the same page lines 410 – 411 a description of obtained significant differences between genders and countries is missing – who is more/less satisfied?

- On page 12 – there is no need to repeat the scale values since they have already been listed a few pages earlier.

- Related to the logistic regression it is not clear why the predictors listed in Table 13 are not included/tested in the models (age, nr. of children, education)… The authors only state (page 15/16, lines 501-503) that these are not significant.

In the discussion and conclusion section, there are also some minimum interventions needed.

- On page 16 (lines 516-517) statements should be more precise, e.g. the authors state “The majority of respondents feel that they are not adequately supported by the local community, and their access to services, transportation, hospitals, and stores is considered moderate. Nevertheless, they do not feel racism or xenophobic tendencies from the local community.” I suggest the author say “The majority of respondents feel that they are not adequately supported by the local community, and their satisfaction with the access to services, transportation, hospitals, and stores is considered moderate. Nevertheless, mostly they do not feel racism or xenophobic tendencies from the local community.”

- Page 15, line 548 – please list the references at the end of the sentence “…with the relevant studies presented in the introduction.”

- Same page, line 550 – what does the RIC acronym stand for?

- On page 17, lines 571 – 574 – the description and interpretation are missing.

- Same page, line 580 – what is the “influential” relationship?

- On page 18 I suggest you cut out the paragraph from line 626 to line 635 since it introduced practically a new subject which was not elaborated earlier. The focus should remain on refugees and their attitudes.

- Finally, the study limitations section should be introduced to the manuscript either further elaborated in the methods section or introduced at the end of the manuscript.

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor typing errors were noticed.

Author Response

Reviewer 1

 Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The manuscript “Individual attitudes and settlement perspectives of refugees in Greece: The case of Samos Island” deals with an important and under-researched subject of refugee attitudes towards the reception country and their intentions of staying. The paper offers insight into relevant statistical data and results obtained through a survey of refugees settled in the Closed controlled reception facility. The manuscript is clearly written and corresponds to the usual structure of scientific publishing. The abstract and title correspond to the article content, however, there are some suggestions which could contribute to the paper’s even more relevant contribution to the researched subject.

Authors answer: Dear Reviewer thank you for your general evaluation of the ms.

 

Reviewer Comment: Firstly, I advise abandoning the usage of terms such as “flows”, and “inflows” since they are conceptual metaphors which characterise refugees as some sort of natural impediment and it has been debated to use more appropriate terms such as movement, arrival, patterns etc. (https://mixedmigration.org/op-ed-negative-narratives-mistaken-metaphors-the-need-for-careful-language-on-migration/).

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. We replaced the terms according to the suggestions.

Reviewer Comment : Secondly, there is a lack of general context of refugee status approval procedure and integration policy in Greece. How long average does this procedure take, is there any difference between the analysed facilities in Samos and other places in Greece, what is the rate of asylum approvals, how many of the refugees actually live in Greece? Adding the paragraph with these contextual data would contribute to a better understanding of the attitudes expressed by refugees themselves. Maybe the authors could consider referent to the UNHCR report on Greece – written by Marine Casalis et al. (https://data.unhcr.org/en/documents/details/106568) which also uses survey methods and reports on different aspects of migrant/refugee integration in Greece. These data could also be used as the point of reference for the results obtained within the reported survey.

Authors answer: Thank you for the suggestions, which allow us to develop a better understanding of the refugees’ issue in Greece. All the raised suggestions were followed in the present version of the manuscript. The report of Marine Casalis was extensively used to get information and to compare the results of her survey with the one’s of ours.

 

Reviewer Comment : The results are presented objectively and logically. Some minor suggestions are referring to some of the results.

- On page 6, line 268, the sentence “educational level of the surveyed population is not particularly high.” should be moved to the next paragraph which deals with Education and employment.

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. The sentence has been moved to the next paragraph at line 890.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 8 title 3.1.4 The condition of the refugees today is not clear what it means

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. The term condition has been changed to state and the acronym KED has been changed to CCS (Closed Controlled Structure).

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 10, line 384 the authors state that “that third-country nationals have not experienced acts of racism and xenophobia”, however, some portion of them do report so, I would advise mellowing down the statement and say e.g., that third-country nationals mostly have not experienced…

Authors answer: After your consideration we inserted the term mostly, thank you for your point comment on this argument.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 11 it would be interesting to see the mean values of satisfaction attitudes presented in Graph 2 – authors even conclude that “Many tend towards moderate satisfaction in all the above” but it cannot be concluded only from frequencies.

Authors answer: Thank you. The comment is to the point. Median values of satisfaction from the services at stake were included in the analysis.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On the same page lines 410 – 411 a description of obtained significant differences between genders and countries is missing – who is more/less satisfied?

Authors answer: Thank you for your comment. We added the missing information on pp. 1274 - 1284.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 12 – there is no need to repeat the scale values since they have already been listed a few pages earlier.

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. We removed the ‘kind’ of services and the scale values from page 12, as they were mentioned in section 3.1.7.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- Related to the logistic regression it is not clear why the predictors listed in Table 13 are not included/tested in the models (age, nr. of children, education)… The authors only state (page 15/16, lines 501-503) that these are not significant.

Authors answer: All the predictors in Table 13 were tested in the model, but as the forward stepwise procedure was employed (mentioned in lines 608 and 1548), the final model stop inserted variables in the model which did not add statistically significant improvements of the fit, based on statistical rules operationally detailed in the manuscript itself.

 

Reviewer Comment :

In the discussion and conclusion section, there are also some minimum interventions needed.

- On page 16 (lines 516-517) statements should be more precise, e.g. the authors state “The majority of respondents feel that they are not adequately supported by the local community, and their access to services, transportation, hospitals, and stores is considered moderate. Nevertheless, they do not feel racism or xenophobic tendencies from the local community.” I suggest the author say “The majority of respondents feel that they are not adequately supported by the local community, and their satisfaction with the access to services, transportation, hospitals, and stores is considered moderate. Nevertheless, mostly they do not feel racism or xenophobic tendencies from the local community.”

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. We replaced the sentence according to your suggestion.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- Page 15, line 548 – please list the references at the end of the sentence “…with the relevant studies presented in the introduction.”

Authors answer: We appreciate your comment and we inserted the requested references. After the revision of the article, the line 548 was moved to line 2332 -2334.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- Same page, line 550 – what does the RIC acronym stand for?

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. We replaced the RIC acronym with the appropriate one CCS which stands for Closed Controlled Structure, as mentioned above in this letter.

 

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 17, lines 571 – 574 – the description and interpretation are missing.

Authors answer: The lines 571 – 574 are the summarization of the survey’s research considering the sectors of education, adapting to Greek language and seeking employment, as they have been analyzed in lines 335 – 368.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- Same page, line 580 – what is the “influential” relationship?

Authors answer: The sentence was changed in order to be understandable (lines 2366 - 2367).

 

Reviewer Comment :

- On page 18 I suggest you cut out the paragraph from line 626 to line 635 since it introduced practically a new subject which was not elaborated earlier. The focus should remain on refugees and their attitudes.

Authors answer: Thank you for the comment. The specific paragraph was removed.

 

Reviewer Comment :

- Finally, the study limitations section should be introduced to the manuscript either further elaborated in the methods section or introduced at the end of the manuscript.

Authors answer: About the limitations section, we have moved this subsection to the end of section “materials and methods” (lines 622 - 703) and we revised its title from “research constrains” to “research limitations”.

 

Reviewer Comment :

Comments on the Quality of English Language

Minor typing errors were noticed.

Authors answer: The quality of English language was improved and typing errors were corrected. A track-change manuscript version (including the main language corrections) was also available on request.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a reasonably interesting study of attitudes of migrants arriving on Samos, the nearest Greek Island to the Turkish mainland and thus a relatively easy route for refugee travel. For many of those interviewed it appears to be a jumping off spot for movement on to other parts of Greece (although this generally means Athens for most) or to a few other specified countries. Many of my comments involve asking for more clarity about statements made before the paper could be recommended for publication. viz

1.what is meant by 'proper' (p. 2 line 53)

2. p.3 lines 107/8 this statement needs better justification

3. p. 6ff the focus on employment seems not really relevant or may need elaboration. Much political dispute across Europe involves conflicting views and perceptions about 'economic' migration versus those seeking asylum i.e. between those simply wanting a better standard of life and those fleeing persecution. This section therefore needs some contextualising.

4. p.7 ff again, we have an apparent separation here between those fleeing war and those fleeing persecution. The reasons for moving on however don't seem to fit this binary categorisation and a greater discussion is needed here to explain this apparent set of contradictory responses.

5. p. 10 many respondent said they have had no contact with local communities but some also have said they faced racism and have not been offered help locally. Can this be unpacked. Does no contact mean they are isolated or does this actually cover issues of racism and inter-communal contact.

6. There is a suggestion that 'local communities' should decide where refugees go. This is rather odd since dispersal is a national policy prerogative: local decision-making seems a recipe for chaos.

7. I don't think the data shown on pp 12-15 adds much to the discussion. Actually, whilst described as a quantitative study, the qualitative material is much more interesting if clarified.

 

Comments on the Quality of English Language

very minor subediting by publisher is required. Generally it is fine.

Author Response

Reviewer 2

 

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

This is a reasonably interesting study of attitudes of migrants arriving on Samos, the nearest Greek Island to the Turkish mainland and thus a relatively easy route for refugee travel. For many of those interviewed it appears to be a jumping off spot for movement on to other parts of Greece (although this generally means Athens for most) or to a few other specified countries. Many of my comments involve asking for more clarity about statements made before the paper could be recommended for publication. viz

Authors: Dear Reviewer thank you for your general evaluation of the ms.

 

Reviewer Comment :

1.what is meant by 'proper' (p. 2 line 53)

Authors answer: The term “proper” means the most detailed and focused statistical method. In order to avoid misunderstanding of the term, we changed it to the term ‘appropriate’

 

Reviewer Comment :

2. p.3 lines 107/8 this statement needs better justification

Authors answer: Thank you for this comment. The specific paragraph has been better analyzed in p.4 lines 354 – 362 and likely reads better now.

 

Reviewer Comment :

3. p. 6ff the focus on employment seems not really relevant or may need elaboration. Much political dispute across Europe involves conflicting views and perceptions about 'economic' migration versus those seeking asylum i.e. between those simply wanting a better standard of life and those fleeing persecution. This section therefore needs some contextualising.

Authors answer: Thank you for your suggestion about the contextualization of this point. We made clear that, despite the reason of movement to another county differs between economic migrants and refugees/asylum seekers, the integration in the host country concerns both of them and that employment is a crucial factor of the latter’s decision to stay permanently in the host country or to move on another one with better job market perspectives. See revisions at lines 901-909.

 

Reviewer Comment :

4. p.7 ff again, we have an apparent separation here between those fleeing war and those fleeing persecution. The reasons for moving on, however, don't seem to fit this binary categorisation and a greater discussion is needed here to explain this apparent set of contradictory responses.

Authors answer: The first category covers people that their home place is in the middle of the war and they cannot stay there for this reason. The second category has to do with persecutions for several political reasons, dictatorship, extreme violence against opposite ideological views in non-democratic regimes and so on.

 

Reviewer Comment:

5. p. 10 many respondents said they have had no contact with local communities, but some also have said they faced racism and have not been offered help locally. Can this be unpacked. Does no contact mean they are isolated or does this actually cover issues of racism and inter-communal contact.

Authors answer: The association between contact/no contact and racism/no racism had been analyzed in detail with statistical tools, and we found that the association is close to statistical significance (X2=3.52, df=1, p=0.061), with the majority of those who have no contact with the local community have not faced racism and xenophobia (77.1%), as in lines 1175-1178.

 

Reviewer Comment :

6. 6. There is a suggestion that 'local communities' should decide where refugees go. This is rather odd since dispersal is a national policy prerogative: local decision-making seems a recipe for chaos.

Authors answer: This is a very correct observation, thank you. We changed the text into a more realistic and practical dimension in lines 354-362.

 

Reviewer Comment :

7. I don't think the data shown on pp 12-15 adds much to the discussion. Actually, whilst described as a quantitative study, the qualitative material is much more interesting if clarified.

Authors answer: If the comment was fully understood, we explained that pp 12 – 15 are giving details results about the factors determining the permanent settlement of refugees in Greece using Logistic regression.

 

Reviewer Comment :

Comments on the Quality of English Language

very minor subediting by publisher is required. Generally it is fine.

Authors answer: Thank you, minor amendments done in the present version.

Round 2

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I am confirming that I am content for this paper now to be published given the authors' responses to my original comments.