Rethinking the citizenship and migration binomial in light of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis.

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

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to making even more visible and less permeable the national boundaries of states around the world, causing the re-emerging the centrality of citizenship “as the ultimate marker of belonging and solidarity” (Triandafyllidou, 2020: 261), again emphasizing the distinction between citizens and non-citizens.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, in fact, citizenship and national boundaries represented rigid categories on which to determine who is entitled to protection and assistance and who is not. Based on this criterion, in many cases, states failed to guarantee social rights to all those who were present on its territory, thus producing forms of exclusion, particularly evident in cases of non-citizen. At the same time, the pandemic crisis stimulated the emergence of new forms of civic engagement and solidarity practices “from below” implemented by civil society in an attempt to fill this void produced “from above”. Solidarity was demonstrated through forms of volunteerism undertaken to help those who were too vulnerable to purchase food or other basic necessities or to provide informal support to those facing evictions or food insecurity. In some cases, it was the immigrants themselves who became the interpreters and protagonists of these practices.
Pursuing the theoretical goal of contributing to debates on citizenship and solidarity in a more inclusive sense, the paper jointly analyzes the concepts of citizenship from below and solidarity from below by applying them to the empirical analysis of a particular practice of solidarity promoted “from below” by migrants in alliance with citizens during the Covid-19 pandemic in the city of Naples, in order to counter the exclusion of the population - migrants and non-migrants - in a condition of social marginality and economic poverty from the system of subsidies provided during the first period of confinement.
The empirical material used is the result of long-term ethnographic research on the social and political participation of migrants in the city of Naples. By building networks of relationships and transversal alliances, migrants and citizens have created a form of inclusive solidarity, capable of challenging and circumventing exclusive solidarity structures, crossing social and political community boundaries and redefining belonging. In particular, the paper will show how this practice of solidarity was able to question and transform citizenship, challenging, modifying and renewing the ways in which those involved defined and acted as citizens, enhancing their social relations.
The analysis of the acts of solidarity produced by the alliance of migrants and citizens can provide an extension of the theory of acts of citizenship and represent the starting point for reflecting in an innovative and more inclusive way on solidarity, alliances, membership, borders and citizenship.

Author

• Rosa Gatti, Department of Political Sciences – University of Naples Federico II