“…In response to Fleischer’s (2011) call to explore the meaning and nature of volunteering in local contexts, the rationale behind our research participants’ commitment in the overall data set echoes insights from across Europe, such as the unpreparedness and lack of responsiveness by state actors and established NGOs in their reception of asylum seekers (Bygnes, 2017; Bygnes & Karlsen, 2017; Jumbert, 2020; Rea et al, 2019), as well as reflecting and solidarity, responsibility and care (Kemp, 2019; Vandevoort & Verschraegen, 2017). Nevertheless, these insights contribute to this conversation by empirically substantiating how volunteering is deployed as a strategy for contesting place representations attributed to local residents that are not aligned with their own self‐identification.…”