The challenges of encouraging refugee assistance: lessons learned from reframing the problem as one of within-group collective action and norm change

Abstract

Cooperation across group boundaries presents special theoretical and practical challenges. Fostering altruism towards refugees magnifies these difficulties given structural inequalities between host communities and those in need of help. Nonetheless, countless organisations and grass-roots efforts provide critical and effective support for asylum seekers around the world. In this article, we analyse a case of a successful grass-roots effort to help a family of asylum seekers in Australia. We use this as a starting point to review the evolutionary social-science literature on cooperation and suggest ways that collective action in support of refugees can be promoted and maintained. The challenge can be reframed as one of achieving two goals: first, norm change; and, second, encouraging altruistic actions. The former requires convincing prospective hosts that refugee support is indeed a public good at the community level. The second goal requires encouraging cooperation within the host community. We have better evidence of what works for the latter than the former.