Undoing the Migrant-Citizen Binomial: Reimagining the Boundaries of Citizenship Through Acts of Solidarity in a Southern European City During the Pandemic

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic contributed to making national borders more visible and less permeable, reasserting the centrality of citizenship “as the ultimate marker of belonging and solidarity” (Triandafyllidou, 2020: 261), and reaffirming the distinction between citizens and non-citizens. In this context, citizenship and national belonging functioned as rigid categories for determining entitlement to protection and assistance. Many states failed to guarantee social rights to all residents, leading to forms of exclusion, particularly for non-citizens. Simultaneously, the crisis sparked the emergence of new forms of civic engagement and solidarity “from below,” enacted by civil society to fill the void left “from above.” Volunteerism flourished supporting those facing food insecurity, evictions, and economic hardship. In some cases, immigrants themselves became central protagonists of these initiatives. This paper contributes to debates on inclusive citizenship and solidarity by jointly analyzing the concepts of citizenship from below and solidarity from below, applying them to a case study of grassroots practices promoted by migrants and citizens in the city of Naples (Italy) during the pandemic. Drawing on long term ethnographic research, it examines how, through the creation of transversal alliances and mutual aid networks, these actors responded to systemic exclusion and economic marginality. Special attention is given to two intertwined pathways: migrant-led initiatives such as the S.e.e.d.s. project, and actions embedded in the urban commons (beni comuni), self-managed civic spaces that became material and symbolic infrastructures of proximity and care. Both trajectories fostered inclusive solidarity capable of contesting institutional boundaries and reimagining belonging. The paper shows how these practices reframed citizenship, challenging, and renewing how participants defined and enacted their civic roles through social relations. The analysis extends the theory of acts of citizenship (Isin 2008) by demonstrating how social and political participation during crisis – particularly by migrant actors – produced new grammars of recognition and belonging. These findings encourage a rethinking of solidarity, alliances, membership, borders, and citizenship in more inclusive and dynamic terms.