Solidarity towards refugees as a contested terrain

This chapter examines cross-country evidence on individual perceptions and behaviours towards refugees, in order to outline the profile of European citizens engaged in solidarity practices in favour of this vulnerable group. It relies on results from original survey data collected in eight European countries (Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Poland, Switzerland, UK) for the EU Horizon 2020 Project European Paths to Transnational Solidarity at Times of Crisis: Conditions, Forms, Role-models and Policy Responses (TransSOL, Grant Agreement n. 649435). The chapter will first provide a general picture of a variety of solidarity practices in different European countries with respect to our target group (refugees), in order to comparatively assess which kind of solidarity behaviour prevails, looking also at the specificities of each country. Secondly, through a cross-country comparison, it will investigate how Europeans perceive refugees as worth of being helped compared to other vulnerable groups. Thirdly, it will analyse political orientations and social traits of people engaged in solidarity with refugees, through a comparison with the profile of people engaged with solidarity practices toward a different vulnerable group (i.e. the disabled), to grasp the specificity of solidarity towards refugees. A concluding section will follow.