Crisis and Willkommenskultur: Civil society volunteering for refugees in Germany

This chapter reviews and discusses the available empirical data on Germany’s refugee-support volunteering movement around the time of the ‘refugee crisis,’ asking whether the sudden popularity of refugee support activities is best understood as a temporary surge in humanitarian attitudes, or, rather, as a more robust shift towards cosmopolitan commitments within German society. It argues that Germany’s ‘refugee crisis‘ volunteers indeed combined a strong emphasis on humanitarian values with a greater skepticism towards cosmopolitan commitments than earlier cohorts of refugee supporters. However, qualitative studies on volunteer groups in local settings reveal that, on the ground, volunteers’ attitudes were more diversity-sensitive and inclusion-based than a mere humanitarian commitment would suggest.