Distributed action for another European migration politics: How “From the Sea to the City“ set the stage for the “International Alliance of Safe Harbours”

The article addresses the relation between local disobedience and translocal networking in struggles for migrant justice in Europe. Both forms of political action have received attention among migration and urban studies scholars. During the summer of migration of 2015 local disobedience proliferated. For example, grassroots initiatives urged municipal authorities to adopt inclusive measures for illegalised migrants (Darling and Bauder 2019) or flag their ability to receive refugees beyond their legislative obligations (Baumgärtel and Pett 2022). From 2017 onwards, civil society actors have reinforced their efforts to change European migration politics through the creation of transnational networks that include mayors, such as the Palermo Charter Process (Maffeis 2021). Nevertheless, conceptualisations of systemic change and how the above mentioned forms of political actions contribute are scarce (Heimann et al. 2019). With this paper, I argue that in paying more attention to the relationship of local and translocal politics in coalitions between municipalities and civil society, we can assess the effects on changing the European migration system. To elaborate my argument, I draw on theories of political organisation that in its core analyse the “assembling, storing and managing of a collective capacity to act [to create] change on the world” (Nunes 2021, 282). The concept of “distributed action” (ibd., 26) helps to understand that processes of political organisation oscillate between dispersed local action and coordinated translocal action. Using the case of the transnational platform ‘From the Sea to the City’ (FS2C), I argue that local acts of disobedience feed into transnational networking efforts to transform European migration politics. Relying on narrative interviews, conference videos, reports and Social Media posts, I reconstruct the tactics of the transnational civil society consortium to build on disobedient local authorities. Especially, I focus on how FS2C crafted and mediatised a conference in June 2021 to set a stage for the foundation of the “International Alliance of Safe Harbours” (IASH). I conclude that in creating IASH, FS2C has increased its capacity to act as it strategically connected dispersed municipal voices of disobedience to appear as a new voice demanding progressive change of European migration politics.