Urban Arrival Infrastructures between Political and Humanitarian Support: The ‘Refugee Welcome’ Mo(ve)ment Revisited

Abstract

<p>Maximilian Park in Brussels was the site of a makeshift refugee camp for three months in 2015 when the institutional reception system was unable to provide shelter for newly arriving asylum seekers. Local volunteers stepped in, formed a civic initiative and organized a reception area under the banner ‘Refugees Welcome!’ The civic platform which emerged claimed and asserted (existing) rights for one specific group, asylum seekers, exclusively, and thus did not challenge the exclusive migration regime nor demand transformation. While such a humanitarian approach risks reproducing the exclusive border regime and the inequalities it engenders, political<em> </em>support is a disturbing rupture in the name of equality that resists normative classifications and inaugurates transformation. This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support and argues that political implications can only be understood through longer-term research, emphasizing processes of transformation that have resulted from these moments of disruption. Therefore, the article revisits Maximilian Park two and four years after the camp and reveals how the humanitarian approach chosen in the camp sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented. Concluding, the article suggests the notion of ‘solidary humanitarianism’ that providing supplies, meeting acute existential needs and simultaneously articulating political claims that demand structural transformation: the right to shelter, basic supply, presence, and movement for all in the city.</p>

Strangers at Home? Informal Hosting of Undocumented Migrants and the Ambivalences of Encounter, Compassion, and Care in the Private Sphere

“…This research is part of a continuous academic engagement with the Plateforme Citoyenne 4 and the Maximilianpark in Brussels since the informal refugee camp was established in 2015 (see Saltiel, 2020Saltiel, , 2021. In 2020, the focus of the empirical research turned to Hébergement.…”

“…More recent critical research, however, shows that encounters alone do not necessarily lead to changes in preconceptions and prejudices nor to greater respect or solidarity-too often, underlying unequal relations of power 1 Maximilianpark is situated in the Northern Quarter in Brussels next to the Foreigners' Office where asylum applications are processed, and right in front of the Brussels North station. For the meaning of Maximilianpark as the space of arrival in Brussels, see Saltiel (2020).…”

“…While encounters with the "other" might lead to reflecting on one's own favorable circumstances and privileges, it often fails to challenge the mechanisms, structures, and institutions that produce and stabilize exclusion and oppression and thereby generate disparities (Wilson, 2017). Following these considerations, there has been a recent debate (especially since 2015) on the disruptive and transformative potential of migrant and refugee support and whether it is politicizing and subversive or merely reproducing the status quo through a humanitarian approach (see Rygiel, 2011Rygiel, , 2012van Dyk and Misbach, 2016;Fleischmann and Steinhilper, 2017;Frykman and Mäkelä, 2019; specifically for the case of Plateforme Citoyenne and migrant support in Brussels, see Depraetere and Oosterlynck, 2017;Vertongen, 2018;Lafaut and Coene, 2019;Vandervoordt, 2019;Saltiel, 2020). So far, this discussion, too, is entirely based on public discourse.…”

Care and the City

“…By choosing 'the poorest' to be eligible for (and assumed to be dependent on) generous care services, humanitarian care ethics reproduce the prevailing politics of need interpretation (Ticktin 2006). 'Refugees Welcome' initiatives often fail to challenge the mechanisms that produce difference and inequality (Saltiel 2020; van Dyk and Misbach 2016) and rather reinstate the hierarchical dialectic of 'generous citizens' as caregivers and 'victimized passive immigrants' as care receivers. It is observed that voluntary work with refugees is often ascribed to a so-called "racism of help" (Byakuleka and Ulu 2016: 18, own translation) that in the act of care (re)establishes relations that refer, at least implicitly, to racist stereotypes of 'white supremacy.'…”

“…However, they were excluded from receiving the services and moreover from the decision-making processes in the camp. This eventually led to severe conflicts between the Platform and some sans-papiers (see De Praetere and Oosterlynck 2017;Saltiel 2020).…”