Saving the Deportee: Actors and Strategies of Anti-deportation Protests in Switzerland

Author(s) : Dina Bader, Johanna Probst

Source : https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74696-8_7

Abstract:

This chapter investigates how and why Swiss citizens take sides with undocumented migrants and stand together in anti-deportation protests. It examines case-specific protests aiming to protect an identifiable beneficiary, which can last several months, sometimes even years. The aim is to grasp how deportation decisions – as concrete applications of the law – are challenged. Based on five case studies, we distinguish two types of case-specific protests according to the strategies adopted and the beneficiary’s role in the protest. First, personifying protests involve Swiss citizens with various political orientations exclusively trying to prevent the deportation of a specific person or family seen as ‘deserving’ to stay. Second, exemplifying protests are implemented by groups of left-oriented activists using the case(s) of one or several migrants as examples illustrating the outcomes of a policy they consider unfair and the reform of which they demand. This second type shows that some anti-deportation protests are neither purely case-specific nor change-oriented, but rather a combination of both (case specific in the means and change-oriented in the purpose). Overall, the typology developed in this chapter allows a theoretical generalization of empirical observations that encompasses both the actor structure and the strategies underlying altruistic protests.

Keywords : Social movement, Protest, Solidarity, Anti-deportation, Migration, Asylum, Switzerland