Elisa Sandri | University of Sussex (original) (raw)
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Papers by Elisa Sandri
The informal refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the ‘new Jungle’, reached an approximate population o... more The informal refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the ‘new Jungle’, reached an approximate population of ten thousand people in 2016. The settlement, despite these high numbers, did not receive aid from the French government or international aid agencies. As a response to the lack of institutional support, and given the squalid conditions of the camp, hundreds of volunteers and grassroots organisations took on the burden of delivering humanitarian aid and basic services in the Jungle. This grassroots humanitarian aid, which I call ‘volunteer humanitarianism’, has particular characteristics that will be explored. The article argues that volunteer humanitarianism can be interpreted as a symbol against the violent border practices across Europe and, because of its informality, provides an alternative to formal humanitarian aid. The article also shows that volunteer humanitarianism formed a connection between humanitarianism and activism that stands in tension with neoliberal governmentality. As the Jungle was demolished in October 2016, this article is a contribution to the history of the camp as well as a testimony of the volunteers’ work there.
British Journal of Sociology, 2018
The European ‘refugee crisis’ has generated a broad movement of volunteers offering their time an... more The European ‘refugee crisis’ has generated a broad movement of volunteers offering their time and skills to support refugees across the continent, in the absence of nation states. This article focuses on volunteers who helped in the informal refugee camp in Calais called the ‘Jungle’. It looks at the importance of emotions as a motivating factor for taking on responsibilities that are usually carried out by humanitarian aid organizations. We argue that empathy is not only the initial motivator for action, but it also sustains the voluntary activity as volunteers make sense of their emotions through working in the camp. This type of volunteering has also created new spaces for sociability and community, as volunteers have formed strong emotional and relational bonds with each other and with the refugees. Finally, this article contributes to the growing body of literature that aims at repositioning emotions within the social sciences research to argue that they are an important analytical tool to understand social life and fieldwork.
Humanitarian Action and Ethics: An Anthology. Zed Books, 2018
In this chapter we focus on the work of volunteers from the summer 2015 – when Calais once again ... more In this chapter we focus on the work of volunteers from the summer 2015 – when Calais once again became a spontaneous migration hub – to the demolition of the camp in October 2016. We argue that the Jungle represents an interesting exception in the literature of camps, particularly in the European context. The Jungle was not administered by authorities or aid agencies, refugees performed some acts of citizenship inside the camp, and volunteers refused to collaborate with local authorities in the coercion of refugees into bureaucratic systems.
The aim of this paper is to explore how, whilst memorialisation and reconciliation in Cambodia ar... more The aim of this paper is to explore how, whilst memorialisation and reconciliation in Cambodia are processes drenched in obstacles and complexities, they are taking new shapes abroad, especially in the USA.
The paper aims to show that memory of the Cambodian genocide is being reconstructed by the diaspora and the second-generation through music, film and Khmer traditional arts, as well as other kinds of artistic productions.
The piece argues that despite their physical or generational distance, Cambodian American artists create forms of remembrance rooted in diasporic narratives and in American artistic frameworks, but intentionally combat amnesic politics both in Cambodia and in the USA. Ultimately, even though these forms of memory fall in the artistic spectrum, they acquire exceptional importance as they are directly affecting Cambodian youth’s attitudes towards the genocide, whilst simultaneously creating spaces for the diaspora where survivors can talk about and reflect upon their own experiences.
The informal refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the ‘new Jungle’, reached an approximate population o... more The informal refugee camp in Calais, dubbed the ‘new Jungle’, reached an approximate population of ten thousand people in 2016. The settlement, despite these high numbers, did not receive aid from the French government or international aid agencies. As a response to the lack of institutional support, and given the squalid conditions of the camp, hundreds of volunteers and grassroots organisations took on the burden of delivering humanitarian aid and basic services in the Jungle. This grassroots humanitarian aid, which I call ‘volunteer humanitarianism’, has particular characteristics that will be explored. The article argues that volunteer humanitarianism can be interpreted as a symbol against the violent border practices across Europe and, because of its informality, provides an alternative to formal humanitarian aid. The article also shows that volunteer humanitarianism formed a connection between humanitarianism and activism that stands in tension with neoliberal governmentality. As the Jungle was demolished in October 2016, this article is a contribution to the history of the camp as well as a testimony of the volunteers’ work there.
British Journal of Sociology, 2018
The European ‘refugee crisis’ has generated a broad movement of volunteers offering their time an... more The European ‘refugee crisis’ has generated a broad movement of volunteers offering their time and skills to support refugees across the continent, in the absence of nation states. This article focuses on volunteers who helped in the informal refugee camp in Calais called the ‘Jungle’. It looks at the importance of emotions as a motivating factor for taking on responsibilities that are usually carried out by humanitarian aid organizations. We argue that empathy is not only the initial motivator for action, but it also sustains the voluntary activity as volunteers make sense of their emotions through working in the camp. This type of volunteering has also created new spaces for sociability and community, as volunteers have formed strong emotional and relational bonds with each other and with the refugees. Finally, this article contributes to the growing body of literature that aims at repositioning emotions within the social sciences research to argue that they are an important analytical tool to understand social life and fieldwork.
Humanitarian Action and Ethics: An Anthology. Zed Books, 2018
In this chapter we focus on the work of volunteers from the summer 2015 – when Calais once again ... more In this chapter we focus on the work of volunteers from the summer 2015 – when Calais once again became a spontaneous migration hub – to the demolition of the camp in October 2016. We argue that the Jungle represents an interesting exception in the literature of camps, particularly in the European context. The Jungle was not administered by authorities or aid agencies, refugees performed some acts of citizenship inside the camp, and volunteers refused to collaborate with local authorities in the coercion of refugees into bureaucratic systems.
The aim of this paper is to explore how, whilst memorialisation and reconciliation in Cambodia ar... more The aim of this paper is to explore how, whilst memorialisation and reconciliation in Cambodia are processes drenched in obstacles and complexities, they are taking new shapes abroad, especially in the USA.
The paper aims to show that memory of the Cambodian genocide is being reconstructed by the diaspora and the second-generation through music, film and Khmer traditional arts, as well as other kinds of artistic productions.
The piece argues that despite their physical or generational distance, Cambodian American artists create forms of remembrance rooted in diasporic narratives and in American artistic frameworks, but intentionally combat amnesic politics both in Cambodia and in the USA. Ultimately, even though these forms of memory fall in the artistic spectrum, they acquire exceptional importance as they are directly affecting Cambodian youth’s attitudes towards the genocide, whilst simultaneously creating spaces for the diaspora where survivors can talk about and reflect upon their own experiences.