Uncovering the Mitigating Nature and Civil Society’s Ways of Working in Neighbourhoods Facing Socioeconomic Challenges: Challenging the ‘Deficit’ View of Capitals and Resources

This paper analyses the nature of migrant civil society in neighbourhoods facing socioeconomic challenges, focusing on capitals and resources utilized to resist classism and racism and to enable action that mitigate social inequalities. This paper proposes a unique categorization to highlight the role of migrant-led organisations, grassroots, hybrids, and multi-purpose organizations. Analytically, we examine the variety of social, material, moral-cognitive, and multicultural capitals utilized, revealing a wide range of resources that facilitate action, contrary to the view of a failing civil society and resource-poverty in these conditions. This paper will conclude that a variety of organizational types, capitals, and resources are often overlooked in conventional approaches to researching mobilisation and organisations in conditions of diversity and socioeconomic challenge. This multi-sited, cross-country qualitative and ethnographic study was conducted to identify various forms of action in seven neighbourhoods, followed by semi-structured interviews with leaders of 129 organizations in England and Sweden.