Independent volunteers and Europe's humanitarian borders

Casey Ching-Mee Tran

doi:10.32920/ryerson.14652573

Abstract

During Europe’s refugee so-called crisis, a volunteering phenomenon emerged. These volunteers mobilized around sites such as refugee camps, transit stations, border crossings to provide humanitarian aid to refugees on the move along the Balkan route. This paper uses semi-structured interviews to examine these volunteers’ work and motivations by situating them in the nexus of humanitarianism and state securitization. First, I draw from William Walters’ “humanitarian border” theoretical notions to demonstrate how new humanitarian borders have emerged within Europe. Then I demonstrate how independent or “grassroots” volunteers are challenging but also becoming implicit in the reinforcement of these humanitarian borders. Key words: volunteers; Europe; refugees; humanitarianism; borders

Highlights

Europe’s refugee “crisis” arguably captured the world’s attention as international media outlets reported extensively (Zhang & Hellmueller, 2017) on the increase of refugee arrivals around the Mediterranean and those on the move along the Balkan route
Stories of individuals terminating their vacation early to volunteer with refugees along the Balkan route are prominent in media reports; their humanitarian efforts have been applauded (“Young Europeans rally around refugees”, 2015)
While there has been a preliminary body of academic literature examining the European Union (EU)’s response to the refugee crisis (Greenhill, 2016), there is not much known about these volunteers and their role in the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees during this “crisis”

Summary

Introduction

Europe’s refugee “crisis” arguably captured the world’s attention as international media outlets reported extensively (Zhang & Hellmueller, 2017) on the increase of refugee arrivals around the Mediterranean and those on the move along the Balkan route. I propose understanding the phenomenon within a humanitarian and securitization framework to help bring forward a critical analysis of the role independent volunteers play in the delivery of humanitarian aid to refugees and how such a role is impacted by relations with the nation-state. This is significant given the lack of political EU cohesion over the handling of the refugee crossings in 2015 and subsequent EU implementation of policies and agreements in 2016 to stem the flow of refugee arrivals and shift refugee-sharing responsibilities to other countries (Human Rights Watch, 2016). They are self-organized, some working in nonregistered (or later become registered) groups while others work alone

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