Impossible Futures? The Ambivalent Temporalities of Grassroots Humanitarian Action

Abstract

While humanitarian action is often criticised for its focus on immediate needs in the present, social movements and political activists are usually thought to work towards a different future. With this article, we aim to complicate these clear-cut distinctions. We investigate how grassroots initiatives supporting migrants navigate different temporalities, relating their actions both to the present and to the future. These interwoven temporalities, however, come with ambivalent political effects. Drawing on cases from Belgium and Germany, we show how they range from potentially shrinking grassroots’ power to intervene to opening windows of political possibility. On the one hand, we illustrate how grassroots initiatives in Belgium feel stuck in a temporal dilemma, when they are forced to focus on the present. On the other hand, initiatives in Belgium and Germany have nonetheless engaged in strategies of future-making, trying to bring about more structural changes to migrants’ living conditions.