Resistance and Compliance in Immigrant-Native Figurations: Albanian and Soviet Greek Immigrants and their Interaction with Greek society

Focusing on two immigrant populations and their relationships with their native neighbours in Thessaloniki, Greece, this paper highlights that immigrant-native relations are not only cultural relations but also power configurations unfolding through a symbolic contestation over defining the nation and who belongs to it. In everyday interaction, immigrants' behaviour is judged by natives according to the degree of their compliance to the native norms. Immigrant categories are endowed with different resources in resisting the pressure exerted by the native society. Categories that have more resources in symbolic and substantial terms are less eager to comply, thus appearing more ‘different’ in the eyes of the natives.