Pro-migrant protest in times of COVID-19: intersectional boundary spanning and hybrid protest practices Open Access

COVID-19 has deeply affected all parts of social, political and economic life in Europe and around the world. This article scrutinizes the consequences of the pandemic for civil society, with a particular focus on social movements. While social movements have shown great resilience in surviving or even increasing mobilization capacity under particular restrictive conditions and crises, including severe repression or economic crises (Fominaya, 2020), the COVID-19 pandemic is unique in its restraints on civil society activity (Zajak 2020). We use the case of pro-migrant mobilizations in Germany to carve out specific pandemic-related challenges and how these social movement actors developed strategies to creatively adapt to the crisis.

Our argument is twofold: first, the pandemic affected the modus operandi of all social movements, as it monopolized media coverage and temporarily prohibited street protest. Yet, pro-migrant mobilizations faced particularly far-reaching difficulties, since the fear of infection prompted governments to close borders and restrict mobility as a means of virus control. This led to a reorientation of public discourse inward to a nationally bounded community, but also set the stage for and catalysed racist framings towards migrants as carriers of diseases (Stierl and Mezzadra, 2020). Second, despite these objective challenges for pro-migrant movements, in Germany, they were able to proliferate, mobilize and attract public attention. We suggest that this was possible through (a) intersectional boundary spanning, meaning that migration-related marginalization was bridged to and combined with other forms of marginalization and inequalities, which surfaced and became reinforced during the pandemic and (b) through the hybridization of on- and offline protest practices in a rapidly digitalizing context.

This article not only provides an empirical analysis of pro-migrant mobilizations during a particular kind of crisis, but also sketches-out avenues for future research on processes of plural alliance formation in diverse societies. To unfold and substantiate our argument, we first theorize the process of adaptation through tactical innovations of social movements in times of crisis. We then reconstruct the COVID-19 related restrictions in Germany and its repercussions for pro-migrant mobilizations. Third, we analyse the tactical innovations and adaptation through which the movements were able to sustain and partly even increase mobilization and visibility.

Disruptive changes in the environment, such as those caused by political or economic crises, have far-reaching repercussions for social movements. In unknown and volatile contexts, some social movement actors manage to adjust through tactical innovations, others suffer a standstill or dissolve altogether (Minkoff, 1999). Tactical innovations can take many forms including the development of new protest tactics, the combination of pre-existing protest forms or new framings (Wang and Soule, 2016). To understand the dynamics of pro-migrant mobilizations during COVID-19, we consider two specific forms of tactical innovation to be crucial: boundary spanning across different identities through intersectional frame bridging and a novel combination of on- and offline forms of protest.

Movement actors engage in boundary spanning activities to cross categorical structures, which form the collective identity of social movements (Wang, Piazza and Soule, 2018).¹ Here we look at a particular variant of crossing different identities and social positions through intersectional frame bridging. Intersectionality originally aims to explain the complex interplay of different forms of marginalization, but has also been used to explain how intersectional coalitions within social movements can be forged (Crenshaw, 1991). In our analysis, we look at how activists recombine different identities to build bridges and form alliances with other activist groups, organisations and networks within and across movements (Foroutan, 2019; Zajak et al.2020). This is being done in a particular moment, in which the COVID-19 crisis not only exacerbated pre-existing inequalities but also added new layers of marginalization and vulnerability during the pandemic. Previous studies have argued that boundary spanning activities emerge when new threats arise, resources become constrained, political transformations take place, or when there are pre-existing overlaps of identities and ideological proximities, which are easy to bridge (Wang, Piazza and Soule, 2018).

We build upon and adjust these insights to the specific context of a pandemic, and complement them with the analysis of tactical innovation in protest practices. As our analysis documents, in addition to framing, the creative combination of on- and offline protest was crucial in sustaining and proliferating mobilization, despite a disadvantageous context. We thereby build upon the burgeoning scholarship on digital media and social movements, which has shown the increasing role of online tools and platforms for mobilization, resource exchange and identity formation (Castells, 2015). In this debate, scholars have stressed the ‘hybridity’ of protest, in which the boundaries between on- and offline practices are blurred (Kavada and Dimitrou, 2017). We suggest that during the contact restrictions, hybridization of contentious practices has reached a new quality through the simultaneous integration and continuous interaction of online and offline protest.

Still, while times of uncertainty and crisis can trigger tactical innovations among social movement actors, strategies also show continuities, since action repertoires and movement identities change slowly (Tilly, 1978). Our analysis of pro-migrant mobilizations during the COVID-19 pandemic, thus, documents how movement actors have responded to a changing context, but equally, how these choices also mirror elements of their pre-pandemic framing and protest repertoires.

This article emanates from a larger research project on pro-migrant mobilizations and alliance making in the aftermath of the ‘long summer of migration’ in 2015 in Germany, which combines semi-structured interviews, structured protest observations and document analysis. For this article, we primarily refer to six semi-structured interviews, which explicitly focussed on issues of pandemic-related challenges and tactical changes in the context of COVID-19. Interviews were conducted online in late May and early June 2020 with representatives of three of the main migration-related protest mobilizations in Germany since 2015 – ‘Welcome United’, ‘Seebrücke’ (‘sea bridge’) and ‘#unteilbar’ (‘indivisible’) (see Table 1). The interviews were conducted in German, have been recorded, transcribed and translated to English. We also draw from an online discussion with representatives of Seebrücke and Fridays for Future on pandemic-related challenges hosted by one of the authors. Lastly, we observed the hybrid protest practices of these three movements through participating in online and offline (protest) events and following their news feeds.

The outbreak of COVID-19 and its rapid spread introduced a highly dynamic period of change, in which most parts of private and public life were severely affected. In Germany, the number of confirmed infections per day reached its peak by the beginning of March 2020 (Robert Koch Institut, 2020) prompting the German government to shift from a recommendatory approach of virus control to a series of mandatory measures: prohibition of major events with more than 1000 participants (10 March), the closure of schools, nurseries and universities (13–16 March), the closure of shops, bars and restaurants (21 March), and finally the overall contact ban (22 March), which prohibited any public events and gatherings in all federal states, regardless of their size (German Federal Ministry of Health, 2020). As a result, fundamental democratic and civil rights – including the right to assembly – were temporarily suspended. It was only when citizens took legal action against the city of Stuttgart's decision to prohibit a demonstration that the German Federal Constitutional Court overturned the general ban to demonstrate (April 17) and obliged the federal states and municipalities to allow registered protest assemblies on a case-by-case basis, provided that hygiene rules were respected (BVerfG, 2020).

Since the ‘long summer of migration’ in 2015, Germany has become a laboratory for a wide range of migrant support practices. While a humanitarian impetus and action repertoire dominated among those offering support to migrants at first (Hamann and Karakayali, 2017), the increasing polarization of German society resulted in an increased politicization of pro-migrant civil society in response to a series of restrictive migration policies and rising right-wing populism (Schwiertz and Steinhilper 2020). This was mirrored in the so-called ‘autumn of solidarity’ in 2018, when various pro-migrant mass mobilizations emerged claiming support for an inclusive and diverse society. Table 1 provides an overview of the profile and pre-pandemic activity of the three pro-migrant mobilizations we studied.

Despite their differences in focus and constituency, these three networks shared both discursive and practical challenges when the pandemic hit Germany. First, COVID-19 absorbed public attention (a). Second, their protest-oriented repertoire risked being banned and or publicly discredited as irresponsible behaviour during a pandemic (b).

(a) While migration to Europe as well as racism in Germany were highly salient issues shortly before the pandemic unfolded, particularly due to the situation of refugees on the Greek islands, and the racist murder of ten people in Hanau (BBC News, 2020), these issues temporarily disappeared from the public debate (interview Seebrücke). Activists watched as public attention evaporated, while simultaneously, the situation for migrants worsened due to measures taken in response to the pandemic. This is particularly true for Seebrücke, as their main concerns were sea rescue and safe passage routes in the Mediterranean Sea, as well as inclusive reception policies in Europe and Germany. While refugee and border issues have been a contested topic in Germany before the lockdown, the evacuation of camps and the reception of refugees appeared illusionary in a context of border closure. This led to a phase of disorientation and uncertainty among the activists, unsure about how to develop a framing strategy which was simultaneously inclusive and sensitive to the discursive context in the unfolding pandemic (interview #unteilbar).

(b) In this first phase of the pandemic, many social movement actors struggled with the ban on public protest. Activists feared losing visibility for their issues, but were, at the same time afraid of being accused of irresponsibly putting others at risk by protesting in the midst of a ‘stay at home’ orthodoxy (online discussion with Seebrücke and Fridays for Future). Soon after the contact restrictions were put in place in March, activists began to think about ways to safely protest without increasing the risk of infection (interview Seebrücke). Already by the end of March, Seebrücke organized online-protests with more than 2000 participants but continued searching for ways to re-appropriate public spaces. While Fridays for Future focused on online protest events in April, Seebrücke planned protest activities in several cities including Potsdam (12 March), Frankfurt (05 April) and Hamburg (05 April) in accordance with the German hygiene standards, yet all of them were forbidden. Shortly after, some small protest events were held in Frankfurt, Hamburg and Berlin, where they encountered heavy policing and were then partly dissolved despite their meticulous attempts to comply with physical distancing rules (Leppert, 2020). Almost simultaneously, a second type of street protest proliferated in various cities against the governments’ coronavirus policies. Thousands gathered assembling a bizarre mix of anti-authoritarians, far right extremists, conspiracy theorists and anti-vaccinationists, some of which were deliberately ignoring the hygiene rules (Colonny, 2020). Seebrücke, Welcome United and #unteilbar organizers univocally perceived the policing of their protest activities as comparatively more restrictive (interviews Welcome United; Seebrücke), underlining their suspicion, that COVID-19 accentuated a renationalization towards ‘German’ concerns at the expense of the human rights of ‘others’ (interviews Welcome United; Seebrücke).

Despite these challenges to their activities, social movement organizations have, in many countries, demonstrated an astonishing capacity to swiftly and creatively adapt to this new and volatile context (Pleyers, 2020). For pro-migrant mobilization in Germany, we found two tactical innovations particularly crucial: First, social movement actors introduced new tactics in the form of re-combined practices of on-and offline activism (a). Second, they spanned boundaries through intersectional frame bridging linking migration-related issues to other forms of marginalization during the crisis (b).

(a) #unteilbar and Seebrücke deliberately developed and refined an intersectional framing strategy. They argued that COVID-19 aggravated already-existing social inequalities and hit the most vulnerable groups particularly hard. Hence, the crossing of categorical structures of race, class and gender under the guise of the pandemic helped to expand the movement boundaries across different collective identities and grievances. The realities of precarious migrants, care workers, single parents, homeless people – to name just a few – were integrated into an inclusive narrative, which placed solidarity with all marginalized groups central. This became visible in the #unteilbar's campaign under the hashtag #SoGehtSolidarisch (‘this is how solidarity works’), which was launched in the midst of the crisis, thereby aimed at bridging the omnipresent call for solidarity during COVID-19, but filling it with the inclusive notion key to their claims in support of an open and diverse society: ‘The pandemic is affecting us all, but not everyone equally. What was unjust before, became more unjust. (..) At the same time racism, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories are increasingly threatening our lives. Together we stand up against this’ (authors’ translation campaign website).²

A similar strategy of frame bridging was adopted by Seebrücke in their ‘#LeaveNoOneBehind’ campaign. While focussing on the movements’ core topics of sea rescue and the evacuation of refugee camps on the Greek islands, they deliberately chose a hashtag that would address a wide range of groups with progressive agendas. #SoGehtSolidarisch and #LeaveNoOneBehind hence opened up an intersectional discursive space to both include and go beyond migration-related claims and, in doing so, helped to gain back resonance for the movement despite the pandemic.

(a) In addition to frame bridging, also the innovation and adaptation of protest practices was key to draw attention back to their claims. Seebrücke and #unteilbar combined on- and offline practices in novel ways, launching specific campaigns to ensure their voices get heard despite the contact restrictions. Online protest events on Twitter and YouTube were held, while activists simultaneously staged protest activities in public spaces. Seebrücke mobilized supporters to hang banners with slogans such as ‘evacuate Moria!’ and ‘#LeaveNoOneBehind’ from balconies, fences and railings to mark the cityscapes. Shoes were laid out in front of ministries, on crossroads and in front of the parliament symbolizing footprints of migrants who died in the Mediterranean or who are stuck suffering inhumane conditions in camps at the European external borders. Bicycle and car demonstrations were organized to comply with the physical distancing rules; flashmobs were performed, to maximize protest despite small numbers of participants. All of these activities were heavily diffused online. While Seebrücke continued to rely on multiple, decentral and spontaneous activities, #unteilbar organized one single major demonstration (14 June). This demonstration took place simultaneously in 10 German cities, mobilizing 20,000 people to for a ‘human chain’ connected by ropes in order to express support for and comply with the physical distancing rules in place. Assembling the biggest number of protesters during the COVID-19 restrictions in the streets in Germany, #unteilbar adapted the ‘human chains’ as a well-established protest form in German antiracist and peace movement history (interviews Welcome United; #unteilbar; Seebrücke). Yet, they deliberately opened it up for a diversity of backgrounds – ‘more self-organized (…) a combination of antiracist, pro-migrant, climate, and care work rallies across the city (…) we really created something new (interview #unteilbar, authors’ translation).

Seebrücke was able to continue with their protest activities because they could rely on their already highly decentralized structure, campaign character and digitized working mode (interview Seebrücke). While #unteilbar had to adapt their processes, digital protest and communication modes were rapidly introduced and widely perceived as a fruitful innovations (#unteilbar). In contrast, Welcome United had serious difficulties in shifting their activities in hybrid modes including the digital space. First, many of its members are migrants with a precarious status who lack access to technical devices or a stable internet connection in their asylum accommodations. Relatedly, mobilizations involving marginalized individuals had already before the pandemic strongly depended on regular physical meetings as a source of trust, which accentuated the detrimental effects of the contact restrictions on their activities (interview Welcome United). These differences within the movement show that social movements do not automatically adopt and implement tactical innovations in times of crisis. This urges scholars to pay attention to differences and marginalization between and within movements, both of which are exacerbated in times of crisis.

In summary, the combination of hybrid protest practices and intersectional frame bridging allowed pro-migrant movement networks in Germany, at least Seebrücke and #unteilbar, to cut through the temporary monopoly the Coronavius had over the public's attention. As a member of Seebrücke stated: ‘the campaign really went through the roof, we didn't expect that. It was present everywhere in Berlin and in other cities. (…). And we got a lot of attention by media and influencers (..), even more donations than before’ (interview Seebrücke, authors’ translation). Thus, despite a disadvantageous context, they were able to raise donations (Seebrücke), organize the largest protest event since the contact restrictions were in place (#unteilbar) and succeed in keeping a constant presence in the virtual and digital space.

The global health crisis of COVID-19 has left its mark on many parts of social life, including the activities of social movements. Studying pro-migrant protests, we showed how social movements adapted to this unprecedentedly disadvantageous context with a hybrid use of online and offline protest and the spanning of boundaries through intersectional frame bridging. This combination allowed for a broad and decentral mobilization, which kept migration as a topic of public debate, against the odds of a pandemic-related focus on health and national issues.

Despite our focus on Germany, and a time frame of analysis, which is limited to the (first) peak of the COVID19 pandemic, we believe this study relates to broader debates on social transformations in Europe in general, and pro-migrant mobilizations in particular. First, our findings resonate with a broader trend documenting the accentuation of an ‘integration – demarcation’ cleavage in Europe (Hutter, 2014) and the increasing polarization of societies. Our article mirrors these trends in the protest arena with a proliferation of social movements aiming at ‘inclusive’ and transnational visions of solidarity (Schwenken and Schwiertz, 2020) on the one hand, and anti-Corona protests with a national identification and limited and exclusive visions of solidarity on the other. We expect that the restructuring of the protest landscape and the emergence of new actors will have consequences for contentious politics in European society beyond the time of an acute pandemic. Second, our argument of intersectional frame bridging and linking migration to other forms of marginalization relates to what has been discussed as a ‘postmigrant’ turn in Germany (Foroutan, 2019; Stjepandić and Steinhilper 2019; Schwiertz and Steinhilper 2020). This framing tactic, our findings suggest, has the potential to increase resonance of migration-related claims and has made progressive social movements more resilient to the challenges for civil society activity arising during COVID-19. Third, the virus contributed to further marginalization and new patterns of intersecting inequalities within societies with direct consequences for social movements. While all examined mobilizations were affected by the crisis, our findings clearly show that the potential to adapt and innovate tactics differed depending on the individual activists’ level of marginalization. Accordingly, this early research article on pro-migrant mobilizations in times of COVID-19 is meant as a stimulus for future research on intersectional boundary spanning both in diverse societies and in times of multifaceted marginalization – as we expect that as these issues will be of relevance for social movement and civil societies beyond the post-pandemic time to come.

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Elias Steinhilper is a postdoctoral researcher at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) in Berlin. Trained as political sociologist in Berlin, Freiburg and Florence, he has a particular interest in migration studies, political conflict, protest and human rights. His research has been published in various peer-reviewed journals including Sociology, Social Movement Studies, International Migration and Critical Sociology.

Katarina Stjepandić is a PhD candidate at the Humboldt University of Berlin and a research assistant at the Berlin Institute for Empirical Integration and Migration Research (BIM). She studied political sciences at Eberhard-Karl's University Tübingen, SciencesPo Paris and Free University of Berlin. Her research focusses on migration and integration studies, social movements and collective action in plural societies.

Sabrina Zajak leads the department ‘conflict and consensus’ at the German Centre for Integration and Migration Research (DeZIM) and is professor for political sociology at the Ruhr-University Bochum. Her recent publications include ‘Social Stratification and Social Movements. Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives on an Ambivalent Relationship’ (Routledge, with Sebastian Haunss).