Shrinking Spaces and Civil Society Contestation : An Introduction

In the context of both the financial crisis and the crisis of European migration politics, the notion of solidarity has gained renewed prominence and – as we argue in this book – its practice has become increasingly contentious. A series of intersecting crises have sharpened social and political polarization and have contracted simultaneously the space for migrant and minority rights as well as the rights around political dissent. This introduction builds upon social movement and migration studies to develop a theoretical framework on the two sides of “contentious solidarity”: a shrinking civic space and its contestation. It thereby maps the variety of repressive means (physical, legal, administrative, and discursive) employed by governmental and non-governmental against migrant solidarity, but also on how civil society organizations react to it through both moderation and increasing contention.