The Frames of Solidarity and Altruism in the British and French Refugee Support Organisations

In the last twenty years, in reaction to increasingly restrictive immigration policies, civil society organisations and grass-roots movements have developed across Europe to organise actions of solidarity with refugees and asylum seekers. Since the so-called refugee crisis in 2015, new networks dedicating to new forms of solidarity such as donating, hosting, and volunteering in refugee camps abroad have emerged and rapidly gained visibility. This paper draws on an ongoing research project exploring the frames of solidarity and altruism and examines how volunteers based in France and the UK articulate their engagement in these support groups. The in-depth interviews we conducted in different British and French charities and networks highlight how volunteers frame the relationship between humanitarian and political action in different – and sometimes contradicting – ways. In particular, while volunteering in these groups is often presented as a response to the hostile political climate around migration and the refugee crisis, this paper shows how this solidarity and altruistic action is framed as a non-political humanitarian support that can effectively address the individual practical and material necessities of people in need. We argue that the notions of solidarity and altruism elaborated by our participants present a tension. On the one hand, these volunteers challenge the bordering policies and negative representations of migration in political and media debates. At the same time, on the other hand, they reinforce an emergency and short-term approach to the exclusionary effects of borders, and reproduce the position of ‘vulnerability’ and disempowerment of refugees and asylum seekers. This paper thus discusses the implications of these discourses, by considering the ambiguities and potentialities of these frames of solidarity and altruism.