Abstract
<p>Maximilian Park in Brussels was the site of a makeshift refugee camp for three months in 2015 when the institutional reception system was unable to provide shelter for newly arriving asylum seekers. Local volunteers stepped in, formed a civic initiative and organized a reception area under the banner ‘Refugees Welcome!’ The civic platform which emerged claimed and asserted (existing) rights for one specific group, asylum seekers, exclusively, and thus did not challenge the exclusive migration regime nor demand transformation. While such a humanitarian approach risks reproducing the exclusive border regime and the inequalities it engenders, political<em> </em>support is a disturbing rupture in the name of equality that resists normative classifications and inaugurates transformation. This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support and argues that political implications can only be understood through longer-term research, emphasizing processes of transformation that have resulted from these moments of disruption. Therefore, the article revisits Maximilian Park two and four years after the camp and reveals how the humanitarian approach chosen in the camp sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented. Concluding, the article suggests the notion of ‘solidary humanitarianism’ that providing supplies, meeting acute existential needs and simultaneously articulating political claims that demand structural transformation: the right to shelter, basic supply, presence, and movement for all in the city.</p>
Highlights
A young man approaches us, asking us in English if we could help him
This article maps out the complex dialectical interrelation between political and humanitarian support
The article aims to add to the discussion on the disruptive, transformative potential of civic ‘Refugees Welcome’ initiatives by adding a longerterm perspective, which has remained absent from the debate until now. It revisits the site of the refugee camp, as well as the civic initiative that emerged, two (2017) and four years (2019) later revealing how the humanitarian approach chosen in the Camp Maximillian sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees were dealt with and represented in Brussels
Summary
A young man approaches us, asking us in English if we could help him. This question irritates me, as does his demanding approach. The article aims to add to the discussion on the disruptive, transformative potential of civic ‘Refugees Welcome’ initiatives by adding a longerterm perspective, which has remained absent from the debate until now It revisits the site of the refugee camp, as well as the civic initiative that emerged, two (2017) and four years (2019) later revealing how the humanitarian approach chosen in the Camp Maximillian sustainably transformed the park, adding arrival infrastructures beyond the institutional, and had an impact on how refugees (not merely asylum seekers) were dealt with and represented in Brussels. Drawing on Dikeç and Swyngedouw’s (2017) differentiation between political and social movements, the subsequent section analyzes two movements that address issues of migration movements (‘No Borders’ and ‘Refugees Welcome’) that took two different approaches and alter regarding their political potential This analysis illustrates what separates a humanitarian moral from a political claim and points to the limits of Rancière’s conceptualization in activist practice regarding the dilemma of classification and identification. The section concludes with an ideal-typical dialectical juxtaposition of political claims and the humanitarian moral (see Table 1), that further provides the analytical framework to discuss the case of Maximilian Park
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