Social Cohesion Through Solidarity with Refugees

This blog post looks at activists and projects that support homeless refugees as an example of social cohesion through solidarity that takes place in local or transnational networks.

In political and media discourse, there is sometimes a fear of insufficient social cohesion referring to nation states – e.g., the cohesion of the “Swiss society.” However, it is often difficult to identify what is meant by cohesion, why this is thought to be important, and what kinds of imaginaries of society are driving these claims.

Moreover, it is necessary to think about the “national” part of this claim, when social life and connections are happening in many different contexts simultaneously, especially in a globalized world. The situation of refugees in Europe can be seen as a good example of this. Social Cohesion, in this case, is understood as being synonymous with solidarity that is developing locally or transnationally, not only nationally.

This also has to do with the fact that the issues addressed by movements of solidarity are not only national, but local and transnational issues. The asylum system of the EU on a supranational level, nation states, but also cities and other local political actors have their stakes in the asylum situation. And refugees, as well as volunteers and supporters, come from many places.

It is remarkable how the situation of refugees in Europe has led to the formation of new organizations of solidarity – often founded by groups of volunteers at a grassroots level – that have expanded locally or transnationally.

Solidarity with Refugees in Calais and Brussels

“It’s Thursday, today the “Refugee Community Kitchen” in Calais starts early. Volunteers from all over the world are washing and drying large vessels, chopping vegetables, and cooking 1500 meals for refugees in Calais and Dunkirk in France. But, on this day, they are also driving 200 km to transport 800 meals as far as Brussels, Belgium.”

The organization “Help Refugees” coordinates donations and volunteers for the refugee community kitchen, the distribution of clothes, sleeping bags, and other services in Calais. It is also active in the UK, Italy, Serbia, Lebanon, and Greece. The volunteers I met in Calais came from England, France, Columbia, Germany, Australia, Italy, Spain, Canada, Croatia, or Syria. They came to Calais specifically for volunteering – a few days, weeks, or months, easily organized via an online form.

Other engaged citizens have built diversified organizations in a specific city or region such as Brussels. To this effect, the “Plateforme Citoyennne” was created to show solidarity with refugees and organize supporting infrastructure, including home-hosting. Their Facebook web page for hosting has as many as 40 000 subscribers, the general page more than 54 000. The movement developed from a local issue: refugees were stranded in the streets of Brussels without food or shelter or possibilities to move on in 2015 and 2016. Concerned people and organizations connected to create an infrastructure that includes meals, shelter, distribution of clothes, training, and many other projects. These cases show how solidarity can develop at different levels than only the national one, based on common goals and values.

Solidarity as Movement Against the Nation State

This kind of solidarity can also develop against the interest or laws of nation states. The examples mentioned make conflicts with national politics visible. That is, a disputed asylum system and the lack of coverage of the essential needs of homeless undocumented refugees. People feel thus compelled to act and a “voluntarization” of basic services takes place.

However, cohesion and solidarity also develop with regard to different views on these topics. The recent negotiations, on ships trying to save refugees by entering Italian harbors, show that not only pro- but also anti-immigrant movements express transnational solidarity for or against the ships docking. The “Fridays for future” movement and its critics are another example of global expressions of solidarity in view of a global issue.

Solidarity as an Act of Citizenship

Some scholars and activists are pointing to the fact that “citizenship” means participating and creating change. Citizenship, according to this understanding, is a social practice, a process, a struggle, or an act (Isin & Nielsen 2008) – and not a formality, “nationality,” or a status quo. In this process, rights and borders of exclusion or inclusion, which the formal understanding of citizenship entails, can thus also change – and have changed in history.

From this point of view, it could be argued that the local and transnational movements of solidarity described above do exactly that: act out citizenship and draw attention to the local, national, and transnational dimensions of current issues.

Katrin Sontag is a cultural anthropologist at the University of Basel and PostDoc in the project Perimeters of Multilayered Democratic Citizenship in a Mobile and Multicultural World.

Reference:

– Isin, E. F., & Nielsen, G. (eds.) (2008). Acts of Citizenship. London: Zed Books.