Immigrants' solidarity and citizenship during the COVID-19 crisis: a transnational perspective

• In Event: The voluntary initiatives in support of migrants in times of crisis: mutual aid, self-mobilization and cross-sectional solidarity

Abstract

Since 2020, the global spread of the Covid-19 virus has caused significant consequences. Italy has been particularly affected, highlighting crucial issues in the country's social structure. One such issue caused by the Covid-19 pandemic crisis is the adverse impact on the living conditions of the most deprived populations, including numerous immigrants (e.g., Ambrosini 2020; Bonizzoni & Artero 2023).
Starting from this context, in this paper, I look closely at the solidarity initiatives developed by immigrant organizations based in Italy during the pandemic. Unlike previous studies that have examined acts of solidarity among migrants during the Covid-19 pandemic (which focused predominantly on actions directed towards fellow-immigrants in the country of residency, often occurring inside the same co-ethnic boundaries; see Galam 2020; Kynsilehto 2020; Libal et al. 2021; Liu and Ran 2020; Vilog & Piocos 2021), I employ a transnational perspective. Immigrant organizations' initiatives, indeed, highlighted a remarkable tendency to transcend national and ethnic boundaries.
Drawing from 19 in-depth interviews from two different research projects carried out between 2022 and 2024 with leaders of immigrant organizations based in Italy, in the findings I first observe the transnational solidarity which was oriented toward immigrants' home country; this represents the form of solidarity more attuned to a traditional understanding of transnationalism as focusing on relations and activities crossing national borders. Then, the paper directs to forms of solidarity toward fellow-immigrants. In particular, this support was usually given to compatriots out of a sense of bounded solidarity but was often extended also to immigrants of other nationalities and implied a collaboration with Italian organizations. Finally, I point out how solidarity extended not just among immigrant networks but between immigrants and the majority Italian society. Consequently, I argue that this transnational solidarity extended its ethnic borders and reached the broader population.
Ultimately, I claim that the solidarity practices that emerged during the Covid pandemic expressed immigrants' transnational citizenship. Through solidarity, they became subjects capable of acting as citizens in multiple contexts and societies across (material and/or immaterial) national borders.

Author

• Maurizio Artero, Università degli Studi di Milano