Solidarity and Humanitarian Responses in Migration Contexts

Solidarity and humanitarian responses have become defining features of contemporary migration governance, shaping how states, civil society and international organisations engage with people on the move. At its core, solidarity embraces shared responsibility, mutual aid and collective action to alleviate vulnerability, while humanitarianism denotes the organised provision of relief and protection in contexts of displacement. Research has mapped the diverse forms of support that emerge in crises—ranging from spontaneous civilian volunteering at borders to long-term integration initiatives—and examined how these practices intersect with political agendas, labour markets and social norms. Scholars highlight the tension between acts that challenge existing power structures through politicised solidarity and those that may depoliticise migration by framing it purely as a humanitarian issue. Emotional and moral dimensions of solidarity are also central, as volunteers negotiate compassion, deservingness and ethical dilemmas in their encounters with displaced people. Across regions, studies reveal how local infrastructures, digital platforms and grassroots networks combine to produce adaptive, scalable humanitarian responses. A growing body of work emphasises the need to understand solidarity not as a static virtue but as a dynamic process with implications for policy design, social cohesion and the rights of migrants.

Research from Nature Portfolio

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Solidarity and Humanitarian Responses in Migration Contexts publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in solidarity and humanitarian responses in migration contexts across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Solidarity: Mutual support and shared responsibility among individuals or groups to address collective challenges.

Humanitarianism: Organised efforts to provide relief and protection to vulnerable populations during crises.

Migration governance: The ensemble of policies, institutions and practices that regulate migration flows and the rights of migrants.

Surrogate welfare state: A system in which humanitarian actors substitute for public social services in providing basic needs.

Depoliticisation: The framing of migration issues solely in humanitarian terms, obscuring their political and structural roots.

References

1. The politics of pro-migrant volunteering: Exploring the role of pro-migrant volunteering in the local migration governance. Cities (2024).
2. Humanitarian capitalism: The labour regime of aid and the surrogate welfare state in times of global displacement. Political Geography (2024).
3. Volunteering in the front line of the Ukrainian refugee crisis: A brief report from Poland. Frontiers in Public Health (2022).
4. Who Deserves Compassion? The Moral and Emotional Dilemmas of Volunteering in the ‘Refugee Crisis’. Sociology (2020).