Migrant Solidarity Work in Times of ‘Crisis’: Glasgow and the Politics of Place

Abstract

Since 2015, new forms of migrant solidarity work emerged in Glasgow, spurred in part by refugee flows into Europe. Yet, for many organisations, much of their work has not changed since 2000, when the government began dispersing asylum seekers around the UK. Using histories and memories of place as an analytical lens, we examine solidarity work since the 2015 ‘crisis’ as well as over the longer term. In our analysis, the ‘crisis’ is not a critical juncture but understood within a broader spatio-temporal context. This raises interesting questions regarding how history and memory are animated in the present, and when and what kinds of solidarity work emerge. In conversation with two community-led organisations in Glasgow, we suggest that as tropes of crisis and hierarchies of deservingness manifest around Europe, solidarity efforts can create spaces of resistance by drawing on a politics of place and recognizing the constructed nature of crises.