Organising for System Change: “From the Sea to the City” and the Movement Ecology of Migrant Solidarity in Europe

Abstract

This paper engages with the relationship between dissident European mayors and the migrant solidarity movement in Europe after 2015. With the case study of the coalition “From the Sea to the City”, I examine how its members institutionalise mayors’ dissent at a transnational level through the International Alliance of Safe Harbours. Employing primary empirical data, the study finds that coalition members create a political sequence in four ways: developing a storyline and setting up a broad coalition of migrant solidarity; referencing mayors’ disruptive acts; nurturing counter-imaginaries; and laying the foundation for further action towards transforming the instituted order of European migration politics. To conceptualise the empirical findings, I draw on concepts of political organisation. In this vein, the paper calls for an assessment of movement politics that goes beyond the belief that local disruptions will suffice to set in motion a progressive transformation of European migration politics.