Emotions and Collective Identities in Contexts of Exclusion. the Case of the Protest for the Rights of Asylum-Seekers in Germany

Emotions and Collective Identities in Contexts of Exclusion. The Case of the Protest for the Rights of Asylum-Seekers in Germany.

Since the 1980s, social movements’ scholars recognize that emotions and collective identities are crucial for the construction of collective actions (Polletta and Jasper, 2001). The extensive literature on emotions and identities shows how these two dimensions interrelate and influence social movements’ strategies, grievances, emergence, evolution, and impact.

Few authors have analysed these dimensions in contexts in which activists face processes of exclusion. This focus raises however important perspectives (Einwohner, 2006). In particular, it leads us to discuss the strategic dimension of the emotional and identity work done by activists. Moreover, it permits us to relate the analysis of emotions and collective identities with more general contextual dimensions.

In this paper, I propose to follow this perspective through the focus on a network active for the defence of asylum right in Germany: ‘Caravan for the rights of refugees and migrants’. This network mobilizes against what is defined as a context of exclusion: the ‘residence obligation’ law, which strongly restricts the mobility and social inclusion of asylum-seekers and refugees living in Germany. Through the concept of ‘identity construction for emotional benefits’, I will show how activists strategically shape collective identities in order to trigger feelings of emancipation among asylum-seekers and refugees in the course of protest.

Two methods have been used in order to explore the construction and interrelation of emotions and collective identities in this network: an analysis of the documents that it published between 2000 and 2010, and a series of in-depth interviews undertaken in the German pro-asylum movement.