DEMOS RESEARCH PROJECTS

Networks of Migrant Solidarity (MiSoNet) is a research project that explores how solidarity is produced through the interaction between municipalities, civil society organizations, and migrants in four European cities. Focusing on different urban settings - Barcelona, Brussels, Copenhagen and Sheffield- the project aims to develop a conceptual framework exploring how solidarity with migrants is produced spatially as well as its outcomes.

The project approaches solidarity as something produced through relationships between people, organisations and places. It examines how solidarity is practiced, negotiated and transformed at the local level, as well as its political and societal effects. By doing so, it also looks at how imaginaries and prefigurative practices that emerge from the local level may challenge traditional approaches to the studies on migration and integration. Furthermore, the project investigates what happens when networks of municipalities and civil society facilitate the circulation of locally developed solidarity practices across national borders. With a focus on these translocal and multiscalar dynamics, it explores their potential to shape cooperation, participation and migration governance beyond the nation-state.

Research questions:

How does solidarity between municipalities, civil society and migrants contribute to develop multiscalar practices and policies beyond the nation-state? 
•    How do solidarity practices promote ways of organising and rethinking policies at the local level? 
•    How do networks of municipalities and civil society promote connections across national borders to exchange experiences and develop cooperation? 
•    How do imaginaries and prefigurative practices emerging from the local level challenge traditional approaches to the studies on migration and integration?

Through comparative research in Barcelona, Brussels, Copenhagen and Sheffield, the project examines how different political and institutional contexts and histories shape solidarity practices. Combining interviews, participant observation and interpretative policy analysis, researchers explore everyday practice, concrete collaborations, and networks, as well as the circulation and adaptation of ideas and experiences between places. The project pays particular attention to processes of negotiation and contestation, and to questions of power, autonomy, responsibility, inclusion and exclusion.

Through this comparative analysis, Networks of Migrant Solidarity (MiSoNet) contributes to academic debates on migration, solidarity, governance and democratic participation. It also produces knowledge relevant to municipalities, civil society organisations and grassroots movements, both uncovering city-based solutions to refugee reception and inclusion and foregrounding civil society’s role to develop a more inclusive and democratic society from below.

Research team:

Professor Óscar García Agustín (Principal Investigator) 
Professor Martin Bak Jørgensen (Co-Principal Investigator)
Dr. Ana Maria Macías García (Postdoctoral Researcher)
Dr. Valentina Marconi (Postdoctoral Researcher)