Introduction
During the year 2015 one and a half million refugees entered the European Union (EU), most of them without being registered at the borders. Most EU member states and the EU as a whole appeared not to be able to manage this massive influx of people looking for a safe harbour from war, prosecution and organized violence. The term ârefugee crisisâ was and is used to characterize this unique period. But, as the former UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon put it, âthis is not a crisis of numbers; it is a crisis of solidarityâ. 1 Obviously, to receive such a high number of refugees in such a short period was challengingâin terms of logistics, of distributing people, of attending asylum applications. The so-called refugee crisis was a challenge for nation states and governments of the EU and for the normative-regulative framework of the EU, mainly the Common European Asylum System (CEAS). And, as Fassin (2016) argues: âThe so-called European refugee crisis is a moral issue before it is a demographic oneâ.
Civil society and its organizational networks compensated for statesâ failure. Therefore, this book is about the refugee movements in 2015 towards the EU and focuses on the activities of civil society and its organizations. Refugees themselves, volunteers and activists engaged in a way that made the events of 2015 a transnational and global issue. What called international attention and scientific interest was not primarily the volume of people arriving in the EU. In relative terms of the population living in the regions of arrival, since the 1990s in different periods there came more refugees for example beginning of the 1990s to Austria and Germany fleeing from the Balkan Wars, in 2006 to the Canarias or since 2010 to Sicily.
If it is not the relative number of arriving refugees, what makes the situation of 2015 special? A main argument of all chapters of this book is that it was the transnational character of the refugee movement and its public perception, and that civil society stood in for the âorganized non-responsibilityâ of almost all EU member states. During the decisive period of the second half of 2015 and in 2016 it was mainly volunteers and civil society organizations that engaged in receiving, welcoming and taking care of the new arrivals. Traditional groups of care, rescue and assistance like the Red Cross or church communities, existing non-governmental organization (NGOs), new networks and associations as well as spontaneous volunteering and political campaigning organized the bigger part of offering protection to arriving refugees. To a certain extent, civic involvement and organizational networks working for the protection of refugees filled the gap left by state authorities that were not able or willing to guarantee refugee protection according to legal and moral standards. After a first period of enchantment and activism, some tendencies of disappointment and fatigue, but also of increasing prejudices and right-wing movements could be observed. But there were also trends of professionalizing assistance, of better organizing, interlinking and/or politicizing activities.
Although there are many studies on refugees, their life courses and routes, on border control and securitization, on administrative dealing with refugees and on their integration dynamics in countries of arrival as well as on refugee policies, less research exists about civil society activities, social movements and organizations related to refugee protection. 2 This is not surprising given the fact that for a century or so states and international governmental organizations (even if originated from civic initiatives like the International Committee of the Red Cross) were at the fore of refugee issues. But mainly since the 1990s civil society activities and organizations related to refugee protection (ORRP) strengthened and entered national and international arenas. During the ârefugee crisis of 2015â civil society activities and their organizational networks were not only active and visible in public, but sustained great part of receiving and dealing with incoming refugees. Civil society and their organizations were the central link between refugees and the state(s).
What are the main characteristics of groups of volunteers and ORRP in terms of their norms and values, size, history, resource mobilization, scope of issues? How did ORRP relate and interact with each other? Could we identify certain clusters of types of organizations working together? Which tensions existed or arose between for example activist groups and old established NGO? What were the internal tensions and debates in these ORRP, for example concerning strategic orientation between working on specific needs of refugees and/or structural changes of societies? How did ORRP and their cooperation networks develop during the course of the ârefugee crisisâ? Did they for example professionalize and or politicize? In the following we will first sketch out some elements that distinguish the ârefugee crisis of 2015â from other situations (section âIntroductionâ). Then we draw four lines of conceptual work that could be helpful for scientific analysis of the refugee movement (section âThe General Significance of the âRefugee Crisisâ of 2015â). Third, some basic ambiguities and structural tensions in and between ORRP will be worked out (section âRefugee Protection as Human Right and Exclusive Mechanismâ), and finally some prospects of the future of arrival and participation of refugees and other groups will be mentioned (section âAmbiguities, Dialectics, and Tensions in the Refugee Movementâ).
The General Significance of the âRefugee Crisisâ of 2015
Many testimonies, journalistic articles and reports, as well as scientific publications related to the so-called refugee crisis exist dealing mainly with policy of nation states and the European Union, with civil society and volunteering activities in general, the experienced flight journey of refugees or the media coverage and reporting. 3 They touch mainly aspects of and still turn up in almost all European countries, but also in other continents. Four characteristics of the refugee movement of 2015 could be sketched out, and in some way or another, all chapters of this book relate to them.
Refugee Movements Organize and Enter the Public Perception and Discourse
Although refugee challenges do exist since decades, the refugee movement in 2015 entered the very centre of Europe and related public discourse. There popped up a new visibility of transnational problems and challenges. Global numbers of refugees and displaced persons reached some 60 million persons in 2015. The great majority of them were and still are located in the neighbouring states of the regions where people are fleeing from. Another aspect that justifies to speak of a new quality refers to the high level of mediatization and âspectacularizationâ of the events. From the very beginning, the refugees themselves and also the media and civil society produced a huge amount of images, photos, videos and interviews. The different political parties and movements from the very right-wing up to the left-wing streams used these kinds of spectacular media reporting for either arguing in favour or against refugee protection and reception. For refugees themselves, new technologies like cell phones were crucial for getting information and connecting into social networks of communication. Refugees on the move were often better informed than other actor groups (Kingsley 2016).
This is related directly with another, apparently contradicting element. Although we are living in a highly mediatized and globalized world, physical co-presence still does matter a lot. For many younger people, especially those who had a migration history, the arrival of refugees in Europe was an opportunity to intervene themselves and act in direct civil society manner. The overall framing of refugee protection shifted from âthere are problems in Middle East and Africaâ to âwe are part of a global constellation where people are forced to flee their homes.â A final aspect was the perception that nation states and the EU had lost control over their borders. Although the volume of refugees arriving to Europe went down since 2016 substantially, especially populist and right wing political parties argue that a âloss of controlâ like in 2015 should never repeat. On the other extreme, activists argue for âno bordersâ. Although there never ever existed a full national control on bordersâless in times of globalizationâthe issue of border control went to the top of political discourse.
Civil Society Emerged as a Crucial Actor
A second substantial experience is the fact that for the first time in Europe and in refugee movements, civil society was a crucial actor in almost all European societies. ORRP were active long before 2015, but in many cases they expanded, re-oriented and reinvented their goals and activities during the so-called crisis. Other civil society groups organized spontaneously. Some were primarily oriented in offering first humanitarian aid and volunteering, others focused on political activism. In this sense, some chapters use the concept of âsubversive humanitarianismâ, indicating this kind of humanitarian activities driven by political considerations. Another conceptual proposal to catch the new role of civil society is that of âprefigurative politicsâ (Leach 2013). It tries to capture the implicit projections of a better future that were emerging or present in the refugee movement of 2015.
In many cases civil society actors were seen not only as âwatchdogsâ and critical mass to be controlled or directed by politicians, but they were recognized as experts and substantial infrastructure of refugee aid, especially at the local level. In many cities and states, local authorities integrated explicitly and invited broadly civil society groups to help coping with the challenges. But it has to be stressed that civil society also consisted of right-wing movements and organizations, of xenophobic collective actions and of violent and aggressive tactics against refugee receptions centres and settlements. It is an important and scientifically open question, why such xenophobic activities and movements were very strong in some regions and societies and weaker in others.
The Meso-level of Organizations Between Individuals and the State
A third aspect that inspired all chapters of this book is the interplay of micro-, meso- and macro-level activities, focusing on organizations and organizational networks as collective and corporative actors (being these organizations in favour, neutral, or against refugee protection). These organizations as âcoral reefsâ (Tarrow 2005) to a great extent existed before and will also survive after the hype of the ârefugee crisisâ. These organizational networks integrate personal involvement with new moral and political mobilizations. They shifted from the micro level of local activities and activists through the meso-level of organizational debates u...