Producing Knowledge, Promoting (Urban) Citizenship at Times of Crisis: Migrant-serving Organizations (MSOs) in Copenhagen and Tel Aviv during the Pandemic

Tatiana Fogelman, Nir Cohen

Publikation: KonferencebidragKonferenceabstrakt til konferenceForskningpeer review

Abstract

In different cities, MSOs maintain close connection with migrants, collecting and maintaining important information about their personal and collective needs. This locally embedded, place-based knowledge of migrant communities, we contend, is important especially at times of crisis, when many disenfranchised (mobile) groups face formidable challenges that stem from their precarious legal status. Under such circumstances, MSOs’ vernacular expertise (Lowe et al., 2019), which typically surpasses that of local and national state agencies, become the main conduit through which to secure their urban citizenship, namely city-based rights, and services – from health and education to welfare and visa renewal. Drawing on case studies of homeless migrants in Copenhagen and African asylum seekers in Tel Aviv, this paper analyzes the ways in which MSOs have both utilized existing – and generated new - knowledge of their respective mobile groups during the pandemic. Using multiple personal interviews with staff at MSOs, as well as officeholders in municipal agencies, we argue that the knowledge produced by MSOs - prior to and during the pandemic - has strategically positioned them vis-à-vis both the city and state, as well as migrants themselves. Through the engendering of (re)new(ed) forms of tacit knowledge, staff and management at MSOs secured their public position as the prime experts on the community, and the exclusive conduit through which its needs could be voiced; simultaneously, their intimate knowledge of the community allowed them to pressure the government to take small, incremental steps to advance their urban citizenship both during and in the aftermath of the crisis. By critically analyzing and comparing the unique socio-political contexts in each city, the paper contributes to a more sensitive and nuanced understanding of the role of organizations – and their expertise – in promoting a more inclusive migrant citizenship regime.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
Publikationsdatomaj 2025
StatusAccepteret/In press - maj 2025
BegivenhedContested boundaries:: Migration and citizenship regimes in comparative perspective - European University Institute, Migration Policy Institute, Forencer, Italien
Varighed: 8 maj 20259 maj 2025

Konference

KonferenceContested boundaries:
LokationEuropean University Institute, Migration Policy Institute
Land/OmrådeItalien
ByForencer
Periode08/05/202509/05/2025

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