Abstract
Through events of solidarity with refugees that unfolded at the Arctic border between Norway and Russia in 2015, we critically address two common analyses of racism and humanitarianism. First, we argue that the often-claimed explanation that racism results from disenfranchised social class fails to identify solidarities across marginalized groups. Furthermore, as anti-Muslim racism has become more mainstream in the Nordic region, solidarity with refugees offers critical positions in relation to political centers. Second, the case demonstrates how humanitarian action and politicized refugee activism are not necessarily separate forms of action but more entangled forms of engagement. The case where a small Arctic community in Kirkenes responded in solidarity with the refugees who crossed the border from Russia demonstrates how humanitarian assistance entangles with politicized action against the European border regime and against xenophobia, which the locals perceive to be generated by politicians from the political centers of Europe.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Andersson, R. (2014). Illegality INC: Clandestine Migration and the Business of Bordering Europe. Oakland: University of California Press.
Balibar, É., Chemillier-Gendreau, M., Costa-Lascoux, J., & Terray, E. (1999). Sans-papiers: l’archaïsme fatal. Éditions La Découverte et Syros.
Boe, C. S. (in press). The Undeported: The Making of a Floating Population of Exiles in France and Europe, Series: Challenging Migration Studies. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.
Boe, C. S., & Mainsah, H. N. (2017). Traces and Places: Making Borders Visible in Paris’ 18th Arrondissement. Retrieved from https://www.law.ox.ac.uk/research-subject-groups/centre-criminology/centreborder-criminologies/blog/2017/06/traces-and-places
Cette France-là. (2012). Xénophobie d’en haut. Le choix d’une droite éhontée. Paris: La Découverte.
Chouliaraki, L. (2013). The Ironic Spectator: Solidarity in the Age of Post-Humanitarianism. London: Polity Press.
Coutin, S. B. (2000). Legalizing Moves. Michigan: University of Michigan Press.
Fassin, D. (2012). Humanitarian Reason: A Moral History of the Present. Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Gerbier-Aublanc, M. (2017). L’umanitaire instrumentalisé à Calais. Plein droit, 1(112), 32–35.
Gullvik, I. K., & Mortensen, R. (2016). Ett år etter milliardkonkursen er Sydaranger Gruve i gang igjen. NRK. Retrieved from https://www.nrk.no/finnmark/xl/ett-ar-etter-milliardkonkursen-er-sydvaranger-gruve-i-gang-igjen-1.13226536
Horsti, K. (2013). De-ethnicized Victims: Mediatized Advocacy for Asylum Seekers. Journalism: Theory, Practice & Criticism, 14(1), 78–95.
Horsti, K., & Neumann, K. (2017). Memorialising Mass Deaths at the Border: Two Cases from Canberra (Australia) and Lampedusa (Italy). Ethnic and Racial Studies, Online first.
Johnson, H. (2016, October 7). Norwegians Laugh at the New Fence on Russian Border. BBC News. Retrieved from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37577547
Lippert, R. (2004, November–December). Sanctuary Practices, Rationalities, and Sovereignties Alternatives: Global, Local, Political. Governing Society Today, 29(5), 535–555.
Mauss, M. (1923–1924). Essai sur le don. Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés primitives. l’Année Sociologique, seconde série.
Migreurop. (2009). Atlas des migrants en Europe. Géographie critique des politiques migratoires. Paris: Armand Collin.
Migreurop. (2017). Atlas des migrants en Europe. Géographie critique des politiques migratoires. Paris: Armand Collin.
Neumann, K. (2013, July 22). Attentiveness and Indifference. Inside Story. Retrieved from http://insidestory.org.au/attentiveness-and-indifference
Niemi, E. (2009). Grenseland og periferi: Møtested for stat, nasjon og etnisitet. In E. Niemi & C. Smith-Simonsen (Eds.), Det hjemlige og det globale: Festskrift til Randi Rønning Balsvik (pp. 431–455). Oslo: Akademisk Publisering.
Nyers, P. (2003, December). Abject Cosmopolitanism: The Politics of Protection in the Anti-Deportation Movement. Third World Quarterly, 24(6), 1069–1093.
Pian, A. (2009). Aux nouvelles frontières de l’Europe. L’aventure incertaine des Sénégalais au Maroc. Paris: La Dispute.
Puggioni, R. (2015). Border Politics, Right to Life and Acts of Dissensus: Voices from the Lampedusa Borderland. Third World Quarterly, 36(6), 1145–1159.
Schimanski, J. (2015). Border Aesthetics and Cultural Distancing in the Norwegian-Russian Borderscape. Geopolitics, 20(1), 35–55.
Scott, J. C. (1998). Seeing Like a State. How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Soleim, M. N. (2015, April). War Graves and Collective Memory, Vol. 4, 101–108.
Soleim, M. N. (2016). “Soviet Prisoners of War in Norway 1941–45—Destiny, Treatment and Forgotten Memories.” Modern History of Russia no. 1, 22–32.
Squire, V. (2014). Desert ‘Trash’: Posthumanism, Border Struggles, and Humanitarian Politics. Political Geography, 39, 11–21.
Ticktin, M. (2011). Casualties of Care: Immigration and the Politics of Humanitarianism in France. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Tucci, I. (2017). In Response to Migration Policies and to the Militarization of Territories: Activism in the Community of Lampedusa. In M. Ojala-Fulwood (Ed.), Migration and Multi-Ethnic Communities: Mobile People from the Late Middle-Ages to the Present. Oldenbourg: De Gruyter.
Viken, A., Granås, B., & Nyseth, T. (2008). Kirkenes: An Industrial Site Reinvented as a Border Town. Acta Borealia, 25(1), 22.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Boe, C.S., Horsti, K. (2019). Anti-Racism from the Margins: Welcoming Refugees at Schengen’s Northernmost Border. In: Hervik, P. (eds) Racialization, Racism, and Anti-Racism in the Nordic Countries. Approaches to Social Inequality and Difference. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74630-2_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74630-2_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-74629-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-74630-2
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)