Paper Short Abstract:

Exploring practices of refugees' support in Switzerland, I will discuss how imaginative repertoires associated with humanitarian volunteerism, with techno-moral administering as well as with an activist ethos interweave in the enactment of 'solidarity' under restrictive conditions.

Paper Abstract:

Drawing on an ethnographic and interview-based study in Switzerland, this paper explores the interplay of depoliticiced and repoliticiced figurations of humanitarian reasoning within a regional support network for undocumented migrants and refugees with temporary permits. Those involved are committed to "safeguarding fundamental rights" guaranteed by the Swiss constitution and the human rights framework. However, they act "within the feasible range", which encompasses both shifting legal constraints and narrowing discursive corridors. Against the backdrop of deterrence-based migration policies, they weigh rationales of humanitarian aid provision and transformative political aspirations, employing varieties of 'solidarity' as an elastic concept.

Is their quasi-humanitarian 'solidarity' a practice of last resort when the state refuses to grant human rights to refugees? Furthermore and nevertheless, it is pertinent to inquire as to the nature of the hope that is entwined with the practices that emerge from this context. As the assignment of responsibilities for basic welfare continuously shifts between state bodies, churches and civil society activists, the latter must navigate volatile grounds. However, they not only address new welfare gaps, but also assume new roles, for example, in raising and distributing funds for public transport tickets, negotiating eligibility and setting out rules. This, I argue, results in both disappointment and the formation of new subject positions from which claims can be articulated differently. Here, the logic of practices merges and collides with imaginative repertoires associated with humanitarian volunteerism, techno-moral administering (Bornstein/Sharma) as well as with an antagonistic activist ethos in the moment of welfare state restructuring.