Cities of Migration

Introduction

Cities worldwide formulate progressive cities to sustain and expand the rights of migrants. Over the last years, labels such as “sanctuary cities”, “urban citizenship”, “solidarity cities”, “refuge cities”, and “welcoming cities” have been put forward to describe these urban policy-making activities. These policies are contested because they often entail a confrontational, or at least polemical, stance towards nation-states. They are often crafted at the grassroots level. While civil society organizations experiment with discourses and practices of migrant solidarity, sympathetic local officials can translate them into full-fledged policy programs.

The urban-national policy contestation is particularly true for urban policy endeavors in support of undocumented migrants. In times of stricter national policies towards undocumented migrants in the Global North, cities develop a variety of policies and practices to improve the precarious situation of undocumented migrants, although they often do not formally possess the legal power to expand the de jure rights of irregular migrants. Yet, cities do it nevertheless because cities see themselves as an alternative locus for the economic, social and political membership of all residents.

The Project

This research project aims to document, compare and explain urban policies in support of forced migrants in European cities. It compares these policies case studies of Barcelona, Milano, Munich, Geneva and Zürich. In addition, the research project also conducted a large-scale descriptive analysis of policies in support of undocumented migrants in Europe's 95 largest cities. This policy survey consisted of an extensive data-collection and data-categorization process. The results show that we can distinguish between urban policies that award a (more) secure status and policies that facilitate access to city services. The mixed-methods analysis suggests that status policies take advantage of policy-making discretion, whereas service policies hinge on the availability of local resources. Yet, there are no simple explanations for the observed policy diversity that is the product of place-based and path-dependent urban policy-making. 

Publications

Bazurli, Raffaele, and David Kaufmann. 2022. external pageInsurgent Asylum Policies in European Cities: A Multi-Level Governance Perspective.call_made Urban Affairs Review. Early Online.

Kaufmann, David, Nora Räss, Dominique Strebel and Fritz Sager. 2022. external pageSanctuary Cities in Europe? A Policy Survey of Urban Policies in Support of Irregular Migrants.call_made British Journal of Political Science 52(4):1954–1963.
***Open Access***

Kaufmann, David and Dominique Strebel. 2021. external pageUrbanizing Migration Policy-Making: Urban Policies in Support of Irregular Migrants in Geneva and Zürich.call_made Urban Studies 58(4): 2991-3008.
– Blog post De Facto [in German]

Kaufmann, David. 2019. external pageComparing urban citizenship, sanctuary cities, local bureaucratic membership, and regularizations,call_made Public Administration Review 79(3): 443–446.

Researcher

Dominique Strebel (former SPUR team member)