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

由于非正常移民进入欧洲仍是激烈的政治辩论的中心，“公民”(包括慈善工作者、积极分子、志愿者等)那些为非正常移民提供帮助的人越来越多地面临来自国家当局的恐吓、镇压和起诉。备受瞩目的案件有所增加，例如法国农民赫鲁因在法国和意大利边境为非正常入境提供便利而被判入狱，西班牙活动人士海伦娜·马雷诺被西班牙和摩洛哥指控走私移民。个人(和组织)可被起诉的活动多种多样，此类活动是否为犯罪往往存在争议：搭便车、提供食物或住所、阻止用于驱逐出境的飞机起飞、帮助移民在没有证件的情况下越境、在海上营救人等。活动人士创造了“团结犯罪”一词，他们认为，采用了压制性立法不仅是为了制裁经济上受益的罪犯(例如“走私者”)，而且可能是为了制裁任何无视国际人权准则向移民提供帮助和救济的人。这项研究在摩洛哥和法国的志愿者、活动家、从业者和其他公民中探索了这些非法和刑事化的过程，在这两个国家，民间社会组织谴责了国家对试图跨海继续旅程的移民和向他们提供援助的移民的镇压。它突出了“公民”和“非正常移民”之间不断变化的界限，以及关于团结和非法的辩论。虽然学者们越来越多地关注移民中非法行为的产生，但关于这种过程如何影响公民的政治机构和主体性的工作很少。这项研究将通过产生关于公民如何遭受和驾驭非法和刑事化进程的定性数据来解决这一差距。它考察了一个欧洲国家(法国)及其在全球南方的一个伙伴(摩洛哥)在“移民管理”方面的程序。这种比较办法使我们能够进一步强调敌对的移徙政治如何与非洲和欧洲各地的一系列联系以及关于团结等价值观的相互竞争的话语纠缠在一起。为了解决在研究这类有政治争议的问题时出现的方法和伦理问题，这项民族志研究将把参与者观察和访谈与视觉方法结合起来，以产生具有变革力量的成果。该项目与民间社会合作伙伴共同设计和共同实施，以确保跨部门的相关性，该项目包括两个知识交流和影响活动(在法国和摩洛哥)，将从业人员、活动家、研究人员、艺术家和政策制定者聚集在一起。这些活动将通过分享将声援移民定为刑事犯罪的最佳做法和解决办法，促进更广泛的跨部门合作。Kei活动将包括推出针对具体国家的政策简报，内容涉及：活动家面临的法律框架和风险；关于做法和政策的证词和基于证据的政策建议。政策简报将面向法国、摩洛哥和其他国家的相关国家机构和决策者以及其他研究用户。该项目还将在曼彻斯特举办一次国际研讨会，来自学术界和学术界以外的代表将分享对欧洲以及中东和北非(中东和北非)地区针对非正常移民的声援行为刑事化的调查结果和回应。通过使用视觉方法产生的创造性成果(如照片、视频)将与策展人一起组织巡回展览，以提高摩洛哥、法国和其他地区公众对移民问题和刑事定罪过程的认识和了解。

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.