Encounters with kindness: everyday and extraordinary kind interventions in the lives of forced migrant survivors of SGBV

Abstract

ABSTRACT While much attention is given to understanding the nature of the sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) encountered by forced migrants, far less focus is placed on the actions and experiences that enable them to cope with violence. In this paper, we adopt a novel perspective examining forced migrants’ accounts of kind encounters with strangers who are not obligated to offer assistance. We draw on 166 semi-structured interviews with forced migrant SGBV survivors to examine the nature of kind encounters, the contexts in which they occur, and their reported outcomes. Our analysis reveals that kind encounters manifest across forced migration journeys and range from the extraordinary to the everyday. Kind encounters offer vital help and support and can connect people across cleavages while fostering resistance against degrading heteropatriarchal and bordering practices. The significance that respondents attach to such encounters underscores gaps in humanitarian protection and the normalization of cruelty towards forced migrants. We argue that kind encounters are inherently micropolitical, influencing social relations, and confronting gendered and racialized hierarchies. By uncovering the importance of kind encounters, we present a fresh perspective on the experiences of SGBV in forced migration with much potential in the study of migration.