Com/passionate Protests: Fighting the Deportation of Asylum Seekers

Abstract

Despite disadvantageous conditions, various forms of protest by ordinary citizens have emerged in Austria to stop the expulsion of asylum seekers. How can protest activities in favor of refugees be explained? Empirically, this article relies on a protest event analysis (PEA) of media articles and an emotion analysis (EA) of protest material. Following the emotional turn, this study emphasizes that personal ties and closely related affective emotions—friendship and solidarity—between deportees and protesters account for the most relevant resources of protest. Moreover, activists strategically use reactive/moral emotions—fear, outrage, and shame—to mobilize broader support. Protesters are mostly recruited from the personal environment of the potential deportees, and the most salient argument expressed against deportation is that well-integrated people deserve to remain in the country. The article concludes that social ties and emotions are useful in explaining not only the emergence and spread of protests but also certain limitations inherent in them with regard to policy change.

Party activism: the permeability of the asylum protest arena in Austria

“…For anti-asylum protests, this subnational pattern has to do with the locality of the grievancethe erection or the presence of an accommodation centre in the immediate neighbourhood. In the pro-asylum arena, grievances often arise when a deportation order has been issued for an individual with whom activists have developed social ties (see also Rosenberger & Winkler, 2014). In particular, politicians affiliated with the ÖVPwhich for more than ten years has supplied the Minister of the Interior in charge of migration and asylum mattersare most active at a local level.…”

“We Are Here to Stay” – Refugee Struggles in Germany Between Unity and Division

“…Additionally, the compassion, solidarity and support of citizens in relation to selforganized struggles are important. Their role has been critically discussed with refugee activists, asking if claims based on their positionalities have been neglected, or in which way the distinction between refugees and supporters is itself problematic (Ulu 2013;Rosenberger and Winkler 2014;Mokre 2015;Ünsal 2015).…”

#LetThemStay: Visual representations of protests and community mobilization for asylum seekers in Australia

“…Writing about the European context (the Netherlands and Germany in particular), McGuaran and Hudig (2014, p. 28) assert that "protesters' demands go beyond individualistic claims and target not only national but EU policy"; additionally, "[s]olidarity among the migrant and refugee support groups is strong and well organised and the mainstream media is becoming increasingly sympathetic to their plight". When it comes to protests against the deportation of refugees, research by Rosenberger and Winkler (2014) in Austria shows that personal ties and affective emotions such as friendship and solidarity were named as the main reasons for protesting. However, such affective attachment could also limit the potential for broader policy change, as protests often focus on individual cases (or relatively small groups as in the #LetThemStay campaign) instead of protesting against the general principle of deportation or the policy that created the problematic situation in the first place.…”