Solidarity Coalitions and Marginalization Processes in the Context of Flight and Migration since 2015

Abstract

Global movements of migrants and refugees increase social diversity and trigger processes of social change that can generate new forms of exclusion and contribute to social conflict. Refugees in particular are quasi-structurally affected by exclusion. This chapter focuses on social practices that attempt to counteract marginalization processes and promoting equal life chances in German municipalities since what became known in Germany as the “long summer of migration” in 2015. Based on qualitative field research in two German cities, it reconstructs and critically reflects on the specific structures and dynamics of local networks of refugee assistance from a long-term perspective and examines their potential for forming new spaces of collective action and solidarity coalitions. The chapter explicitly addresses the precarious structural features of these voluntary networks as practical forms of solidarity in a world of inequality. In the process, it systematically considers the perspective of refugees.