Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have brought food, clothes, medicines , and nu... more Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have brought food, clothes, medicines , and numerous others forms of support to newly arrived refugees. While humanitarian action has always been subversive, I argue that the recent wave of civil actions has pushed its subversive effects one step further. Whereas more modest forms of humanitarian action tend to misrecognise recipients' social and political subjectivities, their more subversive counterparts can be better understood as enacting a particularis-tic form of solidarity that emphasises precisely those subjectivities. To explore the potential for political innovation in these civil initiatives, I argue that it can be useful to do so through the lens of "subversive humanitarianism". More concretely, I suggest the following seven dimensions with which the subversive character of any humanitarian action can be compared across time and space: acts of civil disobedience; the reconsti-tution of social subjects; contending symbolic spaces; the creation of social spaces and personal bonds; assuming equality; putting minds into motion; and the transformation of individuals' life-worlds. I support the argument by drawing upon the recent wave of empirical studies on civil initiatives across the continent as well as my own ethnograph-ic data on the Brussels-based Plateforme Citoyenne de Soutien aux Réfugiés.
In the summer of 2015, a wave of solidarity washed across the European continent as 1.3 million r... more In the summer of 2015, a wave of solidarity washed across the European continent as 1.3 million refugees arrived. While many recent studies have explored how 'ordinary' men and women, NGOs and governments momentarily reacted to the arrival of refugees, this issue examines whether the arrival of refugees and the subsequent rise of civil support initiatives has also resulted in more structural cultural and political changes. The contributions assembled in this issue all delve into the enduring implications of Europe's 'long summer of migration'. They address four sites of change: the dynamics between civil and state actors involved in refugee protection; the gradual politicisation of individual volunteers and organisations; the reproduction of pre-existing cultural imaginaries; and the potential of cities to foster new forms of solidarity.
In 2015, hundreds of new civil initiatives emerged to provide stopgap help to refugees arriving i... more In 2015, hundreds of new civil initiatives emerged to provide stopgap help to refugees arriving in Belgium. This article zooms out from this moment of solidarity and explores the broader socio-political conditions that allowed these initiatives to emerge and, in some cases, solidify into professional service-providers or powerful political actors. The article focuses on two case studies, one in Flanders and one in Brussels. In Flanders, the Hospitable Network brings together local civil initiatives which have drawn upon the networks and skills of senior citizens with considerable experience in civic associations, NGOs and social movements. While these initiatives have partly filled the gaps that were created by a series of neoliberal reforms in Flanders' citizenship regime, the same neoliberal outlook has prevented these initiatives from being institution-alised. In Brussels, the Citizen Platform for the Support of Refugees has mobilised largely among the city's super-diverse population. The Platform's development has been shaped by Brussels' continuing attractiveness to immigrants, as well as by the city's complex governance structure, which has provided it with both material support and increasing opposition. As a result, the Platform has become a highly visible political actor offering partly professionalised support to refugees.
While citizenship scholars have documented the increasing moralisation of immigration and integra... more While citizenship scholars have documented the increasing moralisation of immigration and integration policies, relatively few have explored how immigrants themselves make sense of their (partial) membership of European welfare states. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation with Syrian refugees, this article documents how they interpret and act upon the partial and limited citizenship status they are given in Belgium. We focus on one dimension of their experiences: their stigmatic dependency upon the Belgian welfare state. While their accounts can be partly understood as reproducing neoliberal discourses, we argue that they are also a strategic reaction against the dependency that is inadvertently created by European welfare states. From our respondents’ perspectives, their social rights thus appear not so much as entitlements to be claimed, but as a continuation of the humanitarian logic of the (unreciprocated) gift.
Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have brought food, clothes, medicines , and nu... more Across Europe, hundreds of thousands of volunteers have brought food, clothes, medicines , and numerous others forms of support to newly arrived refugees. While humanitarian action has always been subversive, I argue that the recent wave of civil actions has pushed its subversive effects one step further. Whereas more modest forms of humanitarian action tend to misrecognise recipients' social and political subjectivities, their more subversive counterparts can be better understood as enacting a particularis-tic form of solidarity that emphasises precisely those subjectivities. To explore the potential for political innovation in these civil initiatives, I argue that it can be useful to do so through the lens of "subversive humanitarianism". More concretely, I suggest the following seven dimensions with which the subversive character of any humanitarian action can be compared across time and space: acts of civil disobedience; the reconsti-tution of social subjects; contending symbolic spaces; the creation of social spaces and personal bonds; assuming equality; putting minds into motion; and the transformation of individuals' life-worlds. I support the argument by drawing upon the recent wave of empirical studies on civil initiatives across the continent as well as my own ethnograph-ic data on the Brussels-based Plateforme Citoyenne de Soutien aux Réfugiés.
In the summer of 2015, a wave of solidarity washed across the European continent as 1.3 million r... more In the summer of 2015, a wave of solidarity washed across the European continent as 1.3 million refugees arrived. While many recent studies have explored how 'ordinary' men and women, NGOs and governments momentarily reacted to the arrival of refugees, this issue examines whether the arrival of refugees and the subsequent rise of civil support initiatives has also resulted in more structural cultural and political changes. The contributions assembled in this issue all delve into the enduring implications of Europe's 'long summer of migration'. They address four sites of change: the dynamics between civil and state actors involved in refugee protection; the gradual politicisation of individual volunteers and organisations; the reproduction of pre-existing cultural imaginaries; and the potential of cities to foster new forms of solidarity.
In 2015, hundreds of new civil initiatives emerged to provide stopgap help to refugees arriving i... more In 2015, hundreds of new civil initiatives emerged to provide stopgap help to refugees arriving in Belgium. This article zooms out from this moment of solidarity and explores the broader socio-political conditions that allowed these initiatives to emerge and, in some cases, solidify into professional service-providers or powerful political actors. The article focuses on two case studies, one in Flanders and one in Brussels. In Flanders, the Hospitable Network brings together local civil initiatives which have drawn upon the networks and skills of senior citizens with considerable experience in civic associations, NGOs and social movements. While these initiatives have partly filled the gaps that were created by a series of neoliberal reforms in Flanders' citizenship regime, the same neoliberal outlook has prevented these initiatives from being institution-alised. In Brussels, the Citizen Platform for the Support of Refugees has mobilised largely among the city's super-diverse population. The Platform's development has been shaped by Brussels' continuing attractiveness to immigrants, as well as by the city's complex governance structure, which has provided it with both material support and increasing opposition. As a result, the Platform has become a highly visible political actor offering partly professionalised support to refugees.
While citizenship scholars have documented the increasing moralisation of immigration and integra... more While citizenship scholars have documented the increasing moralisation of immigration and integration policies, relatively few have explored how immigrants themselves make sense of their (partial) membership of European welfare states. Drawing on semi-structured interviews and participant observation with Syrian refugees, this article documents how they interpret and act upon the partial and limited citizenship status they are given in Belgium. We focus on one dimension of their experiences: their stigmatic dependency upon the Belgian welfare state. While their accounts can be partly understood as reproducing neoliberal discourses, we argue that they are also a strategic reaction against the dependency that is inadvertently created by European welfare states. From our respondents’ perspectives, their social rights thus appear not so much as entitlements to be claimed, but as a continuation of the humanitarian logic of the (unreciprocated) gift.
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