La relation entre immigrations et espace urbain connaît actuellement de profondes recompositions dans le contexte athénien. Des nouvelles territorialités voient le jour, induites surtout par des vagues migratoires récemment arrivées. Le but de cette thèse est d'étudier comment l'immigration chinoise, tout en faisant partie de ces vagues migratoires, se différencie et trace des parcours économiques et sociospatiaux autres. Le principal quartier d'installation des ces migrants, situé dans la partie ouest du centre d'Athènes, est au coeur de notre recherche. La question centrale de notre thèse est, d'une part, d'identifier les caractéristiques du tissu social et urbain qui ont permit ce regroupement et, d'autre part, de voir quelles mutations découlent de la présence chinoise dans le quartier. La méthodologie adoptée fait appel à quatre outils principaux : entretiens semi-directifs avec des commerçants et habitants chinois et non chinois, enquête par questionnaire sur deux immeubles du terrain d'étude, relevés et observations du quartier en question, enfin, recueil et traitement des données encore non publiées. Ce travail a suggéré qu'un « quartier chinois », tourné sur l'activité du commerce de gros, est en effet apparu. À côté de sa forte dimension économique, il s'agit d'un lieu de référence pour la population étudiée. Nous montrerons que ce regroupement ethnique coexiste avec d'autres dynamiques qui se manifestent dans le même espace. Les migrants chinois contribuent aux réhabilitations atypiques que connaît leur quartier d'installation, tandis que leur contribution procède de l'imbrication de l'échelle globale et de l'échelle locale. Faisant partie de la diaspora chinoise, ils mobilisent des réseaux transnationaux dans le processus de leur installation. En même temps, le quartier d'installation se transforme aussi pour devenir un nouveau pôle au sein de la toile migratoire chinoise. Finalement, cette étude a montré la nécessité de changer de regard sur la présence des migrants dans l'espace urbain. Contrairement au discours qui associe les migrants au déclin urbain, nous mettons l'accent sur l'aspect positif de leur rôle en tant qu'acteurs du changement urbain. / The relation between migration flows and urban space is experiencing significant recompositions in Athens. Recently arrived migration flows follow new territorialities in the city, thus reshaping its social and urban fabric. Aim of the thesis is to study the Chinese migration as part of those international flows and to further demonstrate the distinct sociospatial trajectories that the latter follow. The central neighborhood of their establishment, located in the west part of the city center, is at the core of our study. The principal question is, on the one hand, to identify the sociospatial characteristics of the neighborhood that allowed their establishment and, on the other hand, to analyze the visible changes of the area of establishment carried out by the Chinese presence. The research combines four methodological approaches: in depth interviews carried out with shopkeepers and inhabitants, both Chinese and non Chinese, survey by questionnaire in neighborhoods' apartment buildings, in situ observation and systematic mapping of the commercial activities and finally, gathering and processing of secondary data, such as population census and business registries. The thesis argues that Chinese migrants, mainly focused on wholesale commercial activities, formed a distinct “Chinese” area in Athens' city center. Next to its dominant economic dimension, the area also constitutes a meeting place for the majority of the Chinese migratory group, which proved to be highly heterogeneous in socioeconomic terms. The thesis further pointed out that this ethnic establishment coexists with the concomitant urban dynamics of the neighborhood. Further on, we showed that they do not only coexist, but they actively contribute to the atypical rehabilitation processes of Metaxourgio area. Their contribution is better understood as an outcome of the local / global scale intertwining. In fact, Chinese migrants, as integral part of a larger diaspora, mobilized transnational social networks in the process of their establishment. This process gave finally rise to a new "pole" of the Chinese diaspora in southern Europe. Following the study's findings, the thesis highlights the necessity of a theoretical shift towards the understanding of migrants' presence and role in the urban space. Contrary to the dominant, discriminating discourses that link migrants' presence to urban decline, this thesis, ultimately, manages to underline the positive effects of Chinese migrants their active role as agents of the urban change.

Made available in DSpace on 2015-03-13T17:10:41Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 CarlosEF_DISSERT.pdf: 3448724 bytes, checksum: 5e204d609ada7e26f1a3ce0d50184ad4 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2010-10-22 / This research arose from the interest on the investigation about urban expansion from Caic?. Since its creation as a village and its ascent to the condition of city, but especially , the occurred expansion from the 70s, when the local cotton economy begins to present signs of exhaustion. The central theme of this work consists on the importance of the geographical events and its relations with the phenomenon of the urban expansion from Caic? that served us as empirical basis. In relation to the events, that appear as elements of analysis on the works from the Professor Milton Santos, especially on the book Nature of Space , they appear as a kind of urban extensors energizing the areas where are installed. Understood by us as a vehicle of one or more possibilities, according to Santos, (1999) we listed some events occurred in the caicoense urbs a nd we divided them into principal and derivative ones, such events implemented from their structures, forms and functions, through processes that resulted and still continue to result the enlargement of the caicoense urban perimeter , densifications enough important for this urban expansion. The technical periods of cattle raising , cotton, as well as the tertiary city and its connections with the role of fast men, as well as slow men is also important aspect in the body of this work. It is still pointed out the inequalities and the coexistences that are generated on the basis of these connections and finally we discussed the positive and negative consequences elapsed from the phenomenon of the urban expansion / Esta pesquisa surgiu a partir do interesse pela investiga??o acerca da expans?o urbana de Caic?, desde a sua forma??o, como vila, e a sua ascens?o ? condi??o de cidade, mas, especialmente, a expans?o ocorrida a partir dos anos de 1970, quando a economia algodoeira local come?a a apresentar sinais de esgotamento. O tema central, deste trabalho, consiste na import?ncia dos eventos geogr?ficos e suas rela??es com o fen?meno da expans?o urbana da cidade que nos serviu de base emp?rica. Com rela??o aos eventos que aparecem como elementos de an?lise nas obras do Professor Milton Santos, em especial, no livro Natureza do Espa?o, eles aparecem como uma esp?cie de extensores urbanos, dinamizando as ?reas onde s?o instalados. Entendidos, por n?s, como um ve?culo de uma ou mais possibilidades, conforme Santos (1999), elencamos alguns eventos ocorridos na urbe caicoense e os dividimos em principais e derivados. Tais eventos implementaram, a partir de suas estruturas, formas e fun??es, atrav?s de processos que desencadearam e continuam a desencadear o alargamento do per?metro urbano caicoense, adensamentos bastante importantes para essa expans?o urbana. Os per?odos t?cnicos da pecu?ria, do algod?o, como da cidade terci?ria e suas conex?es com o papel dos homens r?pidos, como dos homens lentos, ? tamb?m aspecto importante no corpo deste trabalho. Mereceram destaques, ainda, as desigualdades e as coexist?ncias que s?o geradas na base destas conex?es e, por fim, discutimos as consequ?ncias positivas e negativas decorridas do fen?meno da expans?o urbana