AboutThe ‘Brussels’ field site was conceived around a general focus on people on the move that are commonly (but not unproblematically) referred to as ‘transit migrants’ or ‘transmigrants’ ‒ moving and dwelling outside the state-run reception and detention centres. The initial field site was situated in Belgium, the Netherlands, as well as on the North Sea coast. It was broadly seen as an assemblage of multiple co-constructed and interrelated environments, ranging from online networks and platforms to private homes, squats, camps in rural and urban areas, churches, organized shelters, parks and the streets. Because the complexity and multi-layeredness of each setting in each city was difficult to cover by one researcher, Brussels was eventually chosen as the prime research location. The exploratory fieldwork in Dunkirk and Amsterdam gave a good sense of the broader topography in which people on the move in Brussels are operating. Increasingly the focus of attention was directed to care under difficult conditions, in different settings, and in different forms (care of the self and of others, protection and empowerment, voicing and advocacy).
Broader context (of the Brussels site)The broader context both in discourse and in practice is that of the ‘hostile environment’: the post-2015 landscape of a lingering so-called ‘refugee crisis’ in a political climate in which subsequent Belgian Secretaries of State for Asylum and Migration stressed the unmanageable numbers of refugees and characterised their policy as that of reclaiming control over migration by ‘limiting the influx and speeding up the outflow’.
More specifically, the site research focused on squats and private hosting. The continued shortage of accommodation for asylum seekers supplemented by lack of housing for undocumented and documented people alike was addressed by activism of different sorts directed at bringing the accommodation issue in particular and broader basic rights issues to the attention of the general public. This activism consisted of (a) occupations of empty buildings leading to the mobilization of support and the opening of temporary shelters in the city, and (b) legal procedures, leading to multiple convictions of the state for the non-provision of reception. This offered a legal base legitimising the occupations and other protest actions. Furthermore, the 2015 ‘crisis’ lead to the creation of the
Citizen Platform (now: BELRefugees) that, among other things, organised private hosting. This was an immediate success and families started hosting people on the move, also unmediated by the
Citizen Platform.
Ethnographic siteThe brief fieldwork in Dunkirk was situated in the refugee encampment serviced by a number of NGOs, some more informal organisations and (networks of) individuals. In Amsterdam the vantage point were services and activist projects for and with people without shelter or in precarious situations. It engaged with volunteer work in a humanitarian hub, close contact with and follow-up of two individuals in precarious living conditions, interviews with private hosts, guests, representatives of NGO’s, and participation in activities of a small NGO advocating for the rights of people with precarious citizenship.
In-depth research in Brussels focussed on private hosting and organised, ‘prefigurative’ squats. The research consisted in participating in and initiating provision of service and leisure activities, dwelling in parks and the city, following individual trajectories, voluntary work, etc. The engaged ethnographic work comprised interviews with hosts and guests, collaborative and at times activist interactions with interlocutors. This lead straight into the ‘platform’ building activities (see link below).
Beyond state failure and private hosting the research increasingly explored a broad range of (in)formal civil society actors (including people with precarious citizenship), infrastructuring access to housing and social infrastructure. This research is presently continued in the follow-up project ATLAS.
Four key findings1. Private hosting of people on the move underscored the importance of building social and emotional bonds and of providing (the conduits for) social services, leading to or offering material, financial, medical, administrative, or legal support. Private hosting filled a number of gaps in the provisions of the state. Hosting provides meaningful counter-practices to the hostile state-practices of exclusion. Furthermore, host-guest relationships involve very personal and direct dependencies and hierarchies. This is mentioned by some newcomers explaining why they prefer the more anonymous situation of a larger-scale shelter.
2. Outside the official reception and detention centres, Brussels counts numerous buildings occupied by homeless newcomers, and the state and region co-organise and co-fund ad-hoc accommodation often provided by NGOs. These dwellings are dispersed throughout the city and are of a temporary nature ‒ due to maximum residence periods and evictions. This politics of dispersal and displacement in the urban environment forces the newcomers to move from one place to the next which can jeopardize their links to habitual service hubs. In answer to this situation, a range of mobile services emerged in the city. These ‘mobile infrastructures’ actively locate and visit the dispersed in their temporary dwellings ‒ thereby shifting the responsibility of locating and travelling across the city from the newcomers to the organizations themselves.
3. Temporary occupation squats in Brussels not only exert pressure on the federal government to provide shelter and social services to homeless protection seekers, but also foster community building and friendships among local activists and the newcomers and forge important networks beyond the period of the occupation. These long-term relations transcend mere fulfilment of basic needs and service dependencies among the people involved.
4. In response to the ‘hostile environment’ evoked above, the collaborative research highlighted how the federal government’s framing of the situation as
refugee crisis stresses the illegitimacy of arrival, legitimizing stricter migration measures and policies. By reframing this as a
reception crisis, humanitarian and activist actors attribute the root cause of the problem to the decision not to provide reception to all asylum-seeking newcomers. Moreover, the
reception crisis also directs attention to how the rule of law (e.g. convictions of the Belgian federal government had no consequences) is undermined and consequently puts in question Europe’s democratic system and human rights commitments.
Read about the action research for this site
here.
Karel Arnaut, Ilse van Liempt, Bruno Meeus, Shila Anaraki