Contested sites of solidarity: Refugee simulations as simulacra

Abstract Over the last decade, ‘stepping into the lives of refugees’ and ‘walking in their shoes’ through refugee simulations have become increasingly popular advocacy tools among humanitarian actors. Driven by the highly emotive language of care and compassion, these events invite participants to actively engage with lived experiences of refugees, to feel and to sense what they endure, and to encounter their realities in a deeply embodied and intimate way. In doing so, they aim to raise awareness about refugees, change participants’ attitudes towards them, and mobilise solidarity with them. Despite their popularity, refugee simulations are neglected sites in border studies as well as in International Relations more broadly. Drawing on Deleuze’s concept of the simulacrum, and mobilising the concept of minor passages, this paper explores how these simulations might produce, sustain, or destabilise the contemporary violent diagrams of borders while modelling the very borders that they seek to challenge. By exploring two different forms of refugee simulations, humanitarian simulations and community-based simulations, the paper shows that they are performative border sites with a multiplicity of possibilities, some of which may reinforce the violence of borders, while others, as minor passages, offer realisable glimpses of hope for solidarity with those on the move.