Contested Solidarity: Practices of Refugee Support Between Humanitarian Help and Political Activism - Paperback

by Larissa Fleischmann (Author)

In the summer of 2015, an extraordinary number of German residents felt an urge to provide help to refugees. Doing good, however, is not as simple and straightforward as it might appear. Practices of solidarity are intertwined with questions of power. They are situated, relative and contested, unfolding in an ambivalent space between humanitarianism and political activism. This ethnographic account of the German "welcome culture" provides insights into the contested practices, imaginaries, interests and politics of refugee solidarity. Drawing on works from critical migration studies to social anthropology, Larissa Fleischmann develops an empirically grounded understanding of solidarity in migration societies.

Author Biography

Larissa Fleischmann, born in 1989, works as a postdoctoral researcher in Human Geography at the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. She received her PhD from the University of Konstanz, where she was a member of the Centre of Excellence "Cultural Foundations of Social Integration" and the working group in Social and Cultural Anthropology from 2014 to 2018.