Duration:
01 June 2015 - 01 August 2018

Research Team:
Leslie Carmel Gauditz, M.A. (Head of project)

National welfare-states in Europe in times of austerity increasingly struggle to provide social security for its citizens and the asylum system collapses. In the last 20 years, a growing network of No-Border-activists that fight the European border regime, have set the cultural ground and basic infrastructure, that a huge wave of solidarity of volunteers in 2015 were able to build on.

In a prefigurative attempt, to reflect their political anti-hierarchical goals in their everyday interaction, activists working together – both refugees and EU-citizens – try to create equal relationships among each other. This is why the question of power distribution between activists of different legal status became highly relevant.

This doctoral research project aims at understanding how on an activist level, where people try to transform the system, the relationships between people of different background and legal status are being build. It further wants to derive theoretical concepts for potential policy implications for the welfare-state.

The research is based on a circular qualitative design based on the methodological and analytic tools of post-modern Grounded Theory, the so-called Situational Analysis. Data collection includes a multi-sited variety of for instance interviews, participatory observation and analysis of digital communication. It additionally emphasizes a reflexive analysis of personal-emotional experience of the participatory researcher. Field phases are conducted in activist projects in Germany and Greece that provide basic social welfare, like squatted houses and alternative kitchens.

Supervisors: Sebastian Haunss

Duration:
01 June 2015 - 01 August 2018

Research Team:
Leslie Carmel Gauditz, M.A. (Head of project)

Project Type:
Qualification project