Transnational welfare within and beyond the nation-state:civil society responses to the migration crisis in Greece

This article advances understanding of how transnational welfare has emerged in practice within and in relation to the nation-state framework, focusing on the responses of civil society actors to the European migration crisis in Greece. It draws on in-depth interviews with different types of civil society actors engaged in activities in Greece during and since the 2015 period of the migration crisis, including national and international NGOs, local solidarity groups, and international volunteers. The findings point to the ways in which transnational welfare through civil society actions arose in relation to the perceived crisis of the national state and inter-state system, in failing to address the needs of migrants and refugees but also Greek residents. However, transnational welfare also emerged through forms of collective action and identification that sought to counter the social boundaries of nation-state systems in relation to migration and welfare. It is argued that analyses of transnational welfare require attention to both those dimensions – that is, how civil society actions forge new meanings and ways of ‘doing’ welfare that may be trans-national in contesting the boundaries of nation-state systems, but also the limits to those actions in relation to the state.