Beyond Humanitarian Logics: Volunteer-Refugee Encounters in Chios and Paris

Abstract

This paper focuses on self-organized, grassroots volunteers who have emerged as key actors in the humanitarian response to Europe's contemporary "refugee crisis." Based on ethnographic research on the Greek island of Chios and in Paris and taking established critiques of humanitarianism as our point of departure, we explore how volunteers providing humanitarian care navigate the ethical and political dilemmas traditionally encountered by aid workers. More specifically, we ask: what kinds of social relations do volunteers enact through their practices and in their everyday encounters with refugees in and beyond refugee camps? How do the specific qualities of these encounters affect the possibilities of enacting alternative modes of humanitarian practice? Focusing firstly on volunteer-refugee interactions during camp distributions-the paradigmatic mode of humanitarian work-we explore how volunteers simultaneously mimic disciplinary humanitarian practices and engage in processes of ethical deliberation that inform more dignified forms of care. Secondly, we show how everyday volunteer-refugee interactions, formed within diverging spatiotemporal contexts of the two sites, lend themselves to exchanges of "biographical life," opening up spaces for creative solidarities with refugees and more political interventions vis-à-vis the contemporary border regime. We conclude that commonly considered humanitarian logics of depoliticization and dehumanization are not guaranteed outcomes of volunteer humanitarianism. Instead, some of the volunteer practices and everyday encounters that we document hold the potential for more fluid and humane responses to an ever-changing landscape of refugee flows and containment.

Peripheral humanitarianism: Ephemerality, experimentation, and effects of refugee provisioning in Paris

“…At this nexus new humanitarian actors emerged, including thousands of volunteers across various migrant hubs, from the Greek islands, to the Calais camps, and across European capital cities. Recent literatures on 'volunteer humanitarianism' (Jumbert and Pascucci, 2021;Sandri, 2018;Stavinoha and Ramakrishnan, 2020;Vandevoordt, 2019) argue that rather than solely replicating problematic power dynamics between traditional humanitarian actors and refugees -namely dehumanization and depoliticization (see Fassin, 2012 andTicktin, 2016) -volunteers imagined and enacted more humane forms of provisioning. Sandri (2018) demonstrates that the presence of volunteers in Calais developed alternative social spaces, built on 'coexistence' and community-building with refugees.…”

“…Sandri (2018) demonstrates that the presence of volunteers in Calais developed alternative social spaces, built on ‘coexistence’ and community-building with refugees. Stavinoha and Ramakrishnan (2020: 79) link the improvisational spatiality of the ‘camp’ to volunteer practice, arguing that the ‘contours of a different modality of humanitarianism emerge … a makeshift humanitarianism whose value lies in the foregrounding of dignified care’. Yet, with our focus on humanitarianism from below, we keep in tension the potential for ‘disobedient’ practices to emerge with the very real threat of co-optation (Stierl, 2018).…”

“…Each group of men was asked to nominate a representative who would ensure that queues were orderly while key volunteers alternated between each group, giving out tents, sleeping bags, blankets, essential clothing and hygiene kits. While this raises questions of volunteers’ roles in replicating problematic humanitarian logics of control (see Stavinoha and Ramakrishnan, 2020), the PRGS volunteers explained that this was the best way to pre-empt and manage potential conflict. The maraude involves understanding migrant dwellings and spatialities, distribution tactics, navigating police rhythms, and assessing vulnerabilities.…”

“…We draw from our multi-sited research on the humanitarian responses to refugee arrivals across European cities (Thieme et al 2020), examining how humanitarian nodes within the city of Paris, beyond 'the camp' typology (Katz, 2016;Stavinoha and Ramakrishnan, 2020), formed ephemeral and experimental provisioning lifelines for refugees. We examine how particular spaces and temporalities of humanitarian engagement on the urban periphery (dis)enable refugees to survive and in turn, (re)make the everyday city in the liminal timespace between arrival and home-making.…”

From Vulnerability to Trust

“…More generally, we aim to explore how participants give meaning to their daily relational practice of volunteering (Eliasoph and Lichterman 2003;Monforte 2020). In so doing, we want to contribute to the broader refl ection on the emergence of new (hybrid) forms of engagement that go beyond traditional humanitarian action in the "refugee crisis" (Vandevoordt 2019;Stavinoha and Ramakrishnan 2020).…”