Helping Hands: Research network on the everyday border work of European citizens

What does "help" mean to whom, how is "solidarity" negotiated, disputed and practised in everyday? How has the "summer of migration" fuelled and affected initiatives, and how has their work evolved since then under a changing political climate? These and other questions guided a three-day fieldworkshop in Hamburg from 10th to 12th of October, organized by Kerstin Poehls, member of Helping Hands Research Network on the Everyday Border Work of European Citizens.

We encountered numerous initiatives and collectives by and for refugees, providing health counselling, clothes, bicycles or publishing a magazine, fostering inter-religious dialogue, and sharing insights in ongoing every-day refugee struggles in Hamburg.

The interdisciplinary research network Helping Hands is funded by the Danish Research Council for Independent Research 2017-2019 (DFF/6107-00111) and gathers ethnologists, anthropologists, human geographers, borders and migration scholars from 6 different countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Germany, the Netherlands and Scotland). Through fieldworkshops to Copenhagen, Nijmegen, Glasgow and now Hamburg the network explores the different ways of doing solidarity work in European everyday life, in support of refugees coming to Europe.