Abstract
The Solidarity City movement that has emerged in Europe over the past few years shows the growing significance of urban policy coalitions for the struggle against the rightward drift and the ever more restrictive border and migration policies at the national and European level. In this context, the notion of urban citizenship has become an important point of reference when it comes to the question of how cities can counter repressive European border regimes and foster access to rights for non-citizens and cultural pluralism on a local level. Drawing from the authors’ empirical research on various European cities, as well as from the literature on global social inequalities, urban citizenship and radical cosmopolitanism, this chapter investigates the Solidarity City networks and the ways they envision new forms of citizenship.
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Notes
- 1.
According to the UNHCR, nearly 2300 people drowned in 2018 intending to cross the Mediterranean United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2018).
- 2.
In Latin America, a similar network figures under the notion of “ciudades solidarias” (Solidarity Cities). It consists of governments and administrations of several Latin American cities, among them Quilcura in Chile, Sao Paulo in Brasil and Desamaparados in Costa Rica. The ciudades solidarias network was promoted by UNHCR after the so-called Cartagena process in 1984. The Cartagena declaration was signed by most of the Latin American governments. It includes several agreements and policies for the Latin American context by following the principles of the Geneva Refugee Convention. One of these policies is fostering the local integration of refugees through urban policies (UNHRC 2005/2007; Cidade de Sao Paulo 2018).
- 3.
The UN-Process of Compact came along with its rejection by the right-wing governments of several UN-member states. These governments, among them the United States, Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Australia, Israel and Switzerland, criticized that Compact would openly plea for erasing borders and they refused to sign the respective documents (see http://theconversation.com/global-compact-for-migration-what-is-it-and-why-are-countries-opposing-it-106654; Accessed 22.01.2019).
- 4.
See https://shedhalle.ch/shedhalle/ Accessed 22 January 2019.
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Kron, S., Lebuhn, H. (2020). Building Solidarity Cities: From Protest to Policy. In: Baban, F., Rygiel, K. (eds) Fostering Pluralism through Solidarity Activism in Europe. Palgrave Studies in Altruism, Morality, and Social Solidarity. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-56894-8_4
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