Contested Solidarity: Practices of Refugee Support between Humanitarian Help and Political Activism

In: Kultur und soziale Praxis

Abstract

Frontmatter --Contents --1. INTRODUCTION: The Contested Solidarities of the German 'Welcome Culture --1.1. The Spirit of Summer 2015: "We Want to Help Refugees!" --1.2. The Political Ambivalences of Refugee Support --1.3. Conceptualizing Solidarity in Migration Societies --1.4. The Political Possibilities of Grassroots Humanitarianism --1.5. Rethinking Political Action in Migration Societies --1.6. Researching Solidarity in the German 'Summer of Welcome': Field, Access, Methods, Ethics --1.7. An Outline of Contested Solidarity --2. MOBILIZING SOLIDARITY: Building Local 'Welcome Culture' through a Moral Imperative to Act --2.1. The Notion of a 'Welcome Culture' and its Mobilizing Effects --2.2. Humanitarian Dissent: The Solidarity March 'Ellwangen Shows its Colours' --2.3. Humanitarian Governance: Volunteering with Refugees in Ellwangen --2.4. Concluding Remarks: Practices of Solidarity between Dissent and Co-Optation --3. GOVERNING SOLIDARITY: Volunteering with Refugees as a Field of Governmental Intervention --3.1. Governmental Interventions in the Conduct of Volunteering with Refugees --3.2. (Re)Ordering Responsibilities in the Reception of Asylum Seekers --3.3. (Re)Shaping the Self-Conduct of Committed Citizens --3.4. Depoliticizing "Uncomfortable" Practices of Refugee Support --3.5. Concluding Remarks: The Government of Refugee Solidarity --4. POLITICIZING SOLIDARITY: The Contested Political Meanings and Effects of Refugee Support --4.1. "We are also Political Volunteers!" --4.2. Politics of Presence: Enacting Alternative Visions of Society --4.3. Contestations around Equal Rights --4.4. Contestations around a Right to Stay --4.5. Contestations around a Right to Migrate --4.6. Concluding Remarks: Emerging Meanings of Political Action in Migration Societies --5. RECASTING SOLIDARITY: The Political Agency of Asylum Seekers in Relationships of Solidarity --5.1. Insubordinate Recipients: Asylum Seekers' Interventions in Relationships of Solidarity --5.2. The Intermediated Agency of Asylum Seekers --5.3. (De)politicizing the Meanings of Food: The Intermediation of Migrant Protest in Bad Waldsee --5.4. Deterring 'Economic Migrants': The Intermediation of Migrant Protest in Offenburg --5.5. Concluding Remarks: The Agency of Asylum Seekers in the Contestation of Solidarity --6. BREAKING SOLIDARITY: Refugee Activism as a Conflicting Imaginary of Solidarity and Community --6.1. At the Frontlines of Solidarity and Community --6.2. A Short History of Refugee Activism in Schwäbisch Gmünd --6.3. The Breaking of Relationships of Solidarity --6.4. The Conflicting Imaginaries of Community --6.5. Concluding Remarks: The Intimate Relationship between Community and Solidarity --7. WORDS IN CONCLUSION: Lines of Contestation in Contemporary Migration Societies --Introduction --7.1. The Contested Line between Insiders and Outsiders --7.2. The Contested Line between 'the State' and 'Civil Society' --7.3. The Contested Relationship between 'the Local' and 'the World Out There' --References