Acts/Crimes of solidarity: an ethnographic study of illegalisation and criminalisation amongst pro-migration activists and other citizens

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As irregular migration into Europe remains at the centre of heated political debates, 'citizens' (including charity workers, activists, volunteers etc.) who provide help to 'irregular migrants' increasingly face intimidation, repression and prosecution from state authorities. There has been a rise in high-profile cases such as French farmer Herrou sentenced to prison for facilitating irregular entry at the French-Italian border, and Spanish activist Helena Maleno, accused by both Spain and Morocco of smuggling migrants. The activities for which individuals (and organizations) can be prosecuted are diverse and whether such activities are criminal is often contested: giving a lift to migrants, providing food or shelter, preventing a plane used for deportation from taking off, helping migrants to cross borders without documents, rescuing people at sea etc. Activists have coined the term 'crimes of solidarity', arguing that repressive legislations have been deployed not only to sanction criminals (e.g. 'smugglers') who benefit financially, but also to potentially sanction anyone providing help and relief to migrants, in defiance of international norms of human rights. This study explores these illegalisation and criminalisation processes amongst volunteers, activists, practitioners and other citizens in Morocco and France, where Civil Society Organisations have denounced state repression against migrants trying to cross the sea to continue their journeys and those providing assistance to them. It brings to the fore the shifting boundaries between 'citizens' and 'irregular migrants' and debates over solidarity and illegality. Whilst scholars have increasingly paid attention to the production of illegality amongst migrants, there has been little work on how such processes also affect the political agency and subjectivity of citizens. The study will address this gap by generating qualitative data on how citizens are subjected to and navigate illegalisation and criminalisation processes. It examines these processes in a European country (France) and one of its partners in the Global South (Morocco) for the 'management of migration'. This comparative approach enables to further highlight how hostile migration politics are entangled with a range of connections across Africa and Europe and competing discourses over values such as solidarity. To address the methodological and ethical issues which emerge from researching such politically contentious matters, this ethnographic study will combine participant-observation and interviews with visual methods to generate outputs with transformative power.Co-designed and co-delivered with civil society partners to ensure cross-sector relevance, the project includes two Knowledge Exchange and Impact events (in France and in Morocco) to bring together practitioners, activists, researchers, artists and policy-makers. These events will foster wider cross-sector collaborations through the sharing of best practice and solutions to the criminalisation of solidarity towards migrants. The KEI events will include the launch of country-specific policy briefs about: the legal framework and risks faced by activists; testimonials and evidence-based policy recommendations on practices and policies. The policy briefs will be aimed to relevant state bodies and decision-makers and other research users in France, Morocco and beyond. The project will also entail one international workshop in Manchester with delegates from across and beyond academia to share findings and responses to the criminalisation of acts of solidarity towards irregular migrants in Europe and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Creative outputs (e.g. photographs, videos) generated through the use of visual methods will result in a touring exhibition organised with a curator to increase awareness and understanding of migration issues and criminalisation processes amongst the general public in Morocco, France and beyond.