2017 - Franco Angeli
Article
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Feeling the Refugee Crisis : Civic Mobilizations in Germany
137-160 p.
- Germany has been a key destination for refugees during the so-called refugee crisis and has taken on larger numbers of refugees during that period. Civic mobilizations in this context feature the emergence of so-called welcome initiatives. A primary focus of these initiatives has been to provide stop-gap help to incoming refugees, that is chiefly attending to migrants' basic needs for food, clothing, accomodation, transportation, legal advice, language etc. These are new entries into the field of pro-immigrant civic initiatives, adding to pre-existing interest associations, church-related, leftist and refugees' self organized organizations and mobilizations. This chapter charts these novel, welcome mobilizations in order to analyze their emotional bases in a comparative perspective. Fundamental to this is the distinction of pity, compassion, and (political) solidarity as emotions of apprehending others' suffering.
- With Arendt it can be argued that compassion and pity tend to depoliticize civic action, while solidarity may politicize activists. Applying this analytical lens brings into relief to what extend welcome initiatives are politicized or depoliticized, operating more as political activism or humanitarianism. This comes into particular relief when comparing welcome initiatives with other, pre-existing mobilizations, especially of the radical left and by migrants themselves. [Publishers' text].
Is part of
Mondi migranti : 3, 2017-
Information
ISSN: 1972-4896
KEYWORDS
- Emotion, refugee crisis, solidarity, compassion, pity, Germany
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In this issue
- Changing contexts, persistent challenges : the political and social milieu of refugee and asylum seeker reception in Europe
- Introduction : civil society on the edge : actions in support and against refugees in Italy and Germany
- The Politics of Helping Refugees Emerging Meanings of Political Action around the German Summer of Welcome
- Mobilizing against the invasion : far right protest and the refugee crisis in Italy
- Practices of Solidarity : Direct Social Action, Politicisation and Refugee Solidarity Activism in Italy
- Anti-Islamism and beyond : Pegida
- Feeling the Refugee Crisis : Civic Mobilizations in Germany
- La criminalizzazione della solidarietà ai migranti in Val Roja : note dal campo
- International migration and environment : discussing the role of social remittances
- Scuole confessionali in Italia : il caso delle scuole musulmane
- Migration as a risk for security : risk frames in the Italian news on the Libya war and its aftermath
- Editoria e scrittori transculturali in Italia
- La mia esperienza con gli editori italiani
- Recensioni