Urban migrant and refugee solidarity beyond city limits

Abstract

Cities known around the world as sanctuary, solidarity or refuge cities are resisting restrictive national migration and refugee policies and are seeking ways to accommodate migrants and refugees who lack support from the nation state. In this paper I examine urban solidarity approaches in Berlin and Freiburg in Germany, and Zurich in Switzerland. Interviews with key informants reveal that urban solidarity in these cities is not limited to including migrants and refugees living within the city’s boundaries. Rather, urban solidarity reaches beyond municipal boundaries to connect different places and scales in the form of inter-urban solidarity networks and initiatives that aim to enable migrants and refugees who are still abroad to arrive in the city. The complex geographies of urban migrant and refugee solidarity reach far beyond city limits.