Paper short abstract:

Drawing on fieldwork with people volunteering for "A drop in the ocean", a humanitarian non-profit organization working with refugees in Greece, I will discuss the humanitarian imaginations that inform the motivation of people to volunteer and what happens in the encounters with refugees.

Paper long abstract:

In 2015, European states were overwhelmed by the call to make room for refugees seeking a better and secure life. The main response of the European Union and its member states was to enforce borders to prevent refugees from reaching its shores. Simultaneously, however, new practices of hospitality and solidarity through which different ways of engaging with refugees have been initiated and developed by citizens, religious organizations, NGOs and privately organized initiators.

Drawing on fieldwork and interviews with participants in "A drop in the ocean", a humanitarian non-profit organization working with refugees stranded in Greece, I will discuss the humanitarian imaginations that inform the motivation of people to volunteer in this particular organization. While Greece has commonly been a vacation destination among Norwegians, groups of people are now paying to spend time volunteering to help refugees. The organization seeks to "help people help migrants" and facilitates people in Norway to volunteer in specific refugee centers in Greece where they should assist in the everyday life of refugees, including receiving people who come to the Greek shores, food and clothes distribution, and playing with children. What forms of imaginations of solidarity and humanitarian encounters do the voluntaries bring with them? What happens in the meeting between the volunteers and those they are intending to help? How, if at all, does this particular form of practice affect the voluntaries' imaginations of hospitality, solidarity and dugnad when returning to Norway?