Abstract
During the long summer of migration in 2015, Austria became a recipient country for almost 90,000 migrants, most of whom got access to the country through the Western Balkans corridor. Against a backdrop of modest protest culture and largely hostile political attitudes towards asylum seekers, a part of civil society engaged in solidarity activism in support of the migrants. The chapter explores the emotional dimension of pro-refugee collective action, focusing in particular on the extent to which emotions informed the citizens’ decision to get involved in solidarity movements. Drawing on in-depth qualitative interviews with solidarity actors, the analysis discloses the relevance of moral and reactive emotions in explaining citizens’ engagement, revealing that feelings of outrage, compassion, and humanity account for the most relevant resources of solidarity actions. Moreover, it demonstrates that public and personal events that provoked moral shocks, coupled with personal experiences of displacement and uprooting, constituted important predictors of volunteerism.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout the chapter I use the term ‘migrant’, ‘refugee’, and ‘asylum seeker’ interchangeably to refer to individuals who have fled their countries in a bid to escape war, or as a result of economic deprivation, regardless of having lodged an asylum claim or having been granted official international protection.
- 2.
The group, which has a pan-European dimension, is inspired by the French ‘Bloc Identitaire’ and counts on branches in several European countries.
- 3.
The march was allegedly triggered by false information regarding the distance to Germany (No-racism-net 2015). Once in the Austrian territory, the refugees headed towards Deutschlandsberg, a village they thought to be part of Germany as its name recalls Deutschland (Germany). Suddenly the military stopped the crowd and, with the help of translators, clarified the misunderstanding (Interview AU3).
- 4.
‘Border Crossing Spielfeld’ was one of the main groups starting an information campaign to raise awareness on the deportations, claiming they were illegal (Interview AU1).
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Milan, C. (2018). Emotions that Mobilise: The Emotional Basis of Pro-asylum Seeker Activism in Austria. In: della Porta, D. (eds) Solidarity Mobilizations in the ‘Refugee Crisis’. Palgrave Studies in European Political Sociology. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-71752-4_7
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