ANCHOR · Urban Anchors of Local Citizenship: Political Will and the Governance of Migration in Europe

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Project objective

Cities increasingly shape migration governance, not only by implementing national rules but by recognising residents through services and administrative inclusion. ANCHOR: Urban Anchors of Local Citizenship investigates how structurally diverse European cities cultivate, sustain, or dismantle elements of local citizenship for un(der)documented migrants. Addressing a persistent large-city bias in research and policy, ANCHOR brings medium-sized cities into focus alongside major urban centres. Situated at the intersection of urban geography, migration studies, political science, and governance theory, ANCHOR introduces a novel conceptualisation of political will as urban infrastructure, embedded in services, routines, and spatial arrangements. It adopts a cross-national, cross-local comparative design in Greece and the Netherlands. It focuses on four preliminary cases-Thessaloniki and Ioannina (Greece), Rotterdam and Amersfoort (Netherlands)-to be co-selected with municipal and civil-society actors. Methods include qualitative fieldwork, spatial analysis, and participatory tools: interviews, focus groups, governance co-mapping, and document analysis. ANCHOR pursues five aims: (1) identify forms and practices of local citizenship; (2) trace how they emerge, endure, or erode over time; (3) compare governance responses across national and urban scales; (4) theorise political will as infrastructure; and (5) co-produce policy-relevant insights through participatory methods. It advances theoretical understandings of inclusive and resilient urban governance while producing practical outputs and co-developed recommendations. Open science and a commitment to diversity are embedded throughout. Hosted at Erasmus University Rotterdam, the project embeds two-way knowledge exchange and interdisciplinary training, complemented by a secondment with the Soli*City project at Toronto Metropolitan University and a placement with PICUM (Brussels) to broaden comparative and policy impact.

Original text from CORDIS.

Participants

• ERASMUS UNIVERSITEIT ROTTERDAM · RotterdamCoordinatorNetherlands
• PLATFORM FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION ON UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANTS ASBL · BRUSSELBelgium
• TORONTO METROPOLITAN UNIVERSITY · TorontoCanada

Links

• View on CORDIS
• DOI: 10.3030/101264751