Contentious Migrant Solidarity : Shrinking Spaces and Civil Society Contestation

In the context of both the financial crisis and the crisis of European migration politics, the notion of solidarity has gained renewed prominence and - as this book argues - its practice has become increasingly contentious. Intersecting crises have sharpened social and political polarization and have contracted simultaneously the space for migrant and minority rights as well as the rights around political dissent.

Building upon social movement and migration studies, this book maps the two sides of ‘contentious solidarity’: a shrinking civic space and its contestation by civil society. The book thereby unfolds the variety of repressive means (physical, legal, administrative and discursive) employed by governmental and non-governmental bodies against migrant solidarity, but also looks at how civil society organizations react to these restrictions through at times moderation and at times increasing contention. The diagnosis of ‘contentious solidarity’ is located within two broader trends affecting the relationship between the state and civil society in a neoliberal context in general and since the financial crisis in particular.

Bridging studies on social movement studies and civil society organizations, this volume contributes to recent reflections on repression of social movements as well as of a hybridization of civil society organizations. Given its broad scope and the utmost timeliness of the issues it addresses, the volume will be of interest to a broad academic and non-academic audience.

Donatella della Porta is Professor of Political Science, Dean of the Faculty of Political and Social Sciences and Director of the PhD program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). In 2011, she was the recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. She is Honorary Doctor of the universities of Lausanne, Bucharest, Goteborg, Jyvaskyla and the University of Peloponnese. Among her very recent publications are: Social Movements: An introduction, 3rd edition (2020); Can Social Movements Save Democracy? (2020), Die schöne neue Demokratie. Über das Potenzial sozialer Bewegungen (2020), Contesting Higher Education (2020), Discoursive Turns and Critical Junctures (2020), Legacies and Memories in Movements (2018).

Elias Steinhilper is a postdoctoral researcher at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) in Berlin and a member of the Centre on Social Movements Studies (Cosmos) in Florence. Trained as a political sociologist in Berlin, Freiburg and Florence, he has a particular interest in migration, political conflict, civil society and social movements. His research has been published in various peer-reviewed journals including Sociology, Social Movement Studies, International Migration and in the recent monograph Migrant Protest. Interactive Dynamics in Precarious Mobilizations (2021).