The resilience potential of different refugee reception approaches taken during the ‘refugee crisis’ in Amsterdam

Abstract

The so-called refugee crisis in 2015/2016 created opportunities for faith-based organizations, community initiatives, volunteers and refugees to get actively involved in refugee reception in Amsterdam. This study investigated the resilience potential of three refugee reception approaches that were taken during that transformative period: those of a semi-governmental organization (COA), a faith-based organization (The Salvation Army) and a community initiative (Hoost). Based on qualitative data, the article shows that the nexus of regulations and flexibility in crisis responses impacts the ability to employ multiple local resources and thus predetermines the capacity to adopt resilient solutions to refugee reception during crises. The authors plead for daring governmental efforts that acknowledge, connect and facilitate the innovative power of local communities, faith-based organizations, volunteers and refugees in the refugee reception process without further withdrawals of state responsibility for refugee reception. However, it is crucial that such innovative efforts integrate and learn from existing knowledge to prevent mistakes from being repeated.

Residents’ responses to refugee reception: the cracks and continuities between care and control

“…From the "long summer of migration" (Kasparek and Speer 2015) onwards, a range of grassroots activities directed at refugees have emerged in the Netherlands (Rast and Ghorashi 2018;Boersma et al 2018;Rast et al 2019). This public engagement in refugee reception proved massive and received vast media attention.…”

“…This logic is particularly salient for refugees, who often appear as inherently dependentthat is, they are portrayed as helpless victims reduced to a bundle of material needs (Nyers 2006). The depiction of refugees not as self-determined individuals but, rather, as passive recipients that are incapable of improving their own situation and who lack desires, actions and speech (Rast et al 2019;Fleischmann and Steinhilper 2017) is clearly inconsistent with the ideal of active citizenship.…”

“…One of the initiators of "Hospitable East" (cf. Boersma et al 2018;Rast et al 2019)a "bottom-up community initiative" that aimed to create "an alternative and welcoming way of receiving refugees" (Rast et al 2019, 2) in collaboration with local government officials (10)had an "uncomfortable" experience with selecting people to admit to the initiative. In a television broadcast, she explained that she went to reception centres herself and deliberately selected specific people for her project, resulting in a group of political scientists, architects, economists, artists and a professional basketball player.…”

“…Youkhana and Sutter (2017) attend to the role of "civil society initiatives" that challenge the European border regime, and Baban and Rygiel (2017) investigate "community-based initiatives" led by citizens who open communities to "newcomers." In the Netherlands, scholarly attention includes a focus on "community initiatives for refugees" (Rast and Ghorashi 2018), "spontaneous volunteering and grassroots movements" (Boersma et al 2018), and "local communities, faith-based organizations, volunteers and refugees in the refugee reception process" (Rast et al 2019). These studies link bottom-up mobilizations to protest, activism and resistance, as well as to debates on (active) citizenship and democratization.…”

An innovative resilience approach: Financial self-help groups in contemporary financial landscapes in the Netherlands

“…The development of contemporary society is unpredictable, which implies that everything should be resilient. In practice, resilience is a vague concept that is also criticized for its neoliberal austerity and structural power mechanisms (Rast et al, 2019). Despite criticisms, we aim at providing insight in the concept of resilience that is characterized by different meanings and discourses.…”