Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Urban Citizenship Covid

Urban Citizenship & Corona

Urban Citizenship Making at Times of Crisis

Urban Citizenship-Making at Times of Crisis. Building local-level resilience among migrants in Berlin, Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv

Welcome to our project website. The research we are presenting here came out of numerous academic as well as personal discussions we had with friends and colleagues at the beginning of the Covid-19 crisis. With “Urban Citizenship-Making at Times of Crisis“, we hope to contribute to the important body of research that explores the urban dimensions of the Covid-19 crisis. Specifically, we are focusing on the provision of rights, resources, and information for migrants in times of crisis.

In many cities, migrants’ access to local-level rights crucially depends on the support of migrant-serving organizations (MSO). With the advent of Covid-19, these infrastructures were significantly challenged. National responses to the pandemic resulted in lockdowns in cities around the globe and introduced unprecedented measures, deeply regulating the support for migrants, and leaving many without much needed assistance. In our 18-month project, funded by the Volkswagen Foundation, we examine the consequences of these measures for the work of MSOs and, subsequently, for migrants' access to urban citizenship.

 

Our empirical research took place between January 2021 and May 2022. During this period, we conducted around 45 interviews with MSOs and other actors.

 

The following research questions guided our empirical work:

• How did MSOs and their frontline workers respond to the pandemic situation?

• How did MSOs cope with the pandemic at large and with restrictive regulations and national lockdowns in particular?

• What happened during the pandemic at the intersections between clients, MSOs, and city administrations?

 

With three local teams working out of Bar Ilan University, Humboldt University, and Roskilde University, the project is comparative and works with case studies in Berlin, Copenhagen, and Tel Aviv. Since each case represents a different migratory regime and migrant-serving infrastructure, the set-up allows us to pay attention to the relevance of local context, and to compare similar as well as different responses to the pandemic.

The results show how urban actors and frontline workers lived up to their political and working commitments, filling institutional voids and addressing structural inequalities that Covid-19 had amplified, and how new institutional innovations and creative arrangements emerged in different local contexts. A systematic comparison of the three case studies will be published soon. Key results that we would like to highlight include the importance of bottom-up community organizing and horizontal networks between MSOs, the relevance of local bureaucracies, and the need for a more holistic perspective of resilience that includes access to local-level resources and rights, namely urban citizenship.

Please use the menu on the left side of this website to check out our three case studies, read more about our team, and find links to papers and presentations. We hope you enjoy our online documentation and would love to hear from you!

The project team

 

Contact:

Berlin: Henrik Lebuhn

Kopenhagen: Tatiana Fogelman

Tel Aviv: Nir Cohen