Protest Movements in Asylum and Deportation

This open access book deals with contestations “from below” of legal policies and implementation practices in asylum and deportation. Consequently, it covers three types of mobilization: solidarity protests against the deportation of refused asylum seekers, refugee activism campaigning for residence rights and inclusion, and restrictive protests against the reception of asylum seekers. By applying both a longitudinal analysis of protest events and a series of in-depth case studies in three immigration countries, this edited volume provides comparative insights into these three types of movement in Austria, Germany, and Switzerland over a time span of twenty-five years. Embedded in concepts of political change, limited state sovereignty, and migration control, the findings shed light on actors, repertoires, and the effects of protest activities. The contributions illustrate how local contexts, national political settings, issue specifics, and social ties lead to distinctly different forms of protest emergence, dynamics, and strategies. Additionally, they give a profound understanding of the mechanisms and constellations that contribute to protest success, both in terms of preventing deportations of individuals as well as changing policies. In sum, this book constitutes a major contribution to empirically informed theoretical reflections on collective contestation in the fields of refugee studies and social protest movements.

Introduction: 1: Political Protest in Asylum and Deportation. An Introduction: Sieglinde Rosenberger -- Part I: Contextualizing Protest: 2: Asylum Policies and Protests in Austria: Nina Merhaut, Verena Stern -- 3: Between Illegalization, Toleration, and Recognition: Contested Asylum and Deportation Policies in Germany: Maren Kirchhoff, David Lorenz -- 4: Who Ought to Stay? Asylum Policy and Protest Culture in Switzerland: Dina Bader -- Part II: Solidarity Protests against Deportations: 5: Tracing Anti-Deportation Protests: A Longitudinal Comparison of  Austria, Germany and Switzerland: Didier Ruedin, Sieglinde Rosenberger, Nina Merhaut -- 6: Worth the Effort: Protesting Successfully against Deportations: Maren Kirchhoff, Johanna Probst, Helen Schwenken, Verena Stern -- 7: Saving the Deportee: Actors and Strategies of Anti-Deportation Protests in Switzerland: Dina Bader, Johanna Probst -- Part III: Refugee Protests for Inclusion: 8: “We Belong Together!” Collective Anti-Deportation Protests in Osnabrück: Sophie Hinger, Maren Kirchhoff, Ricarda Wiese -- 9: “We are here to Stay” – Refugee Struggles in Germany between Unity and Division: Abimbola Odugbesan, Helge Schwiertz -- 10: “We Demand our Rights!” The Refugee Protest Camp Vienna: Monika Mokre -- Part IV: Restrictive Protest against Asylum Seekers: 11: Mobilization against Refugees and Asylum Seekers in Germany: A Social Movement Perspective: Dieter Rucht -- 12: Protest against the Reception of Asylum Seekers in Austria: Miriam Haselbacher, Sieglinde Rosenberger -- Conclusion: 13: Protests Revisited: Political Configurations, Political Culture and Protest Impact: Gianni D’Amato, Helen Schwenken -- Glossary.