CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2016
| Author | Schaerer, Salome Johanna |
|---|---|
| Title | Solidarity and Im/Mobility on the 'Balkan route': Differences within the Migration Solidarity Movement in Belgrade |
| Summary | ABSTRACT This thesis seeks to scrutinize the question, how the material, social, political, educational, economic, and national backgrounds and privileges of international and local volunteers, activists and NGO workers supporting migrants on the ‘Balkan route’ differentially and unequally capacitates them in claiming, resisting or submitting to different stratified structures of power and inequality. Who is telling whom how and why to support people on the move? Who collaborates with whom, how and why, or why not? Although one might be inclined to assume that shared motivations and intentions are what unifies people with different backgrounds in this movement which programmatically has been called ‘horizontal solidarity’ (e.g. Rajaram 2015), I will argue that within the field of migration support, however spontaneously enacted or deeply structured, long standing inequalities are being reproduced along similar lines as the European continent is stratified internally. These include not only North-South and East-West divides, but more complex and deeply rooted differences based on material, social, political, educational, economic, and national backgrounds. Qualitative ethnographic analysis of volunteer’s backgrounds and aspirations, as well as the success or lack of collaboration among individuals and groups will serve as the basis on which to differentiate what is often being understood as an all-too homogeneous group of people. Through interviews with volunteers, activists and NGO workers as well as not only participant observation but working along with different groups in the areas in which they are operating, I gained the necessary understanding that underlines my argument. To limit the scope of this thesis, my research area is restricted to the operations of volunteer, activist and NGO groups in Belgrade, Serbia over the time of three month in early 2016. |
| Supervisor | Rajaram, Prem Kumar; Renkin, Hadley Zaun |
| Department | Sociology MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2016/schaerer_salome.pdf |
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