Activism as grassroots reparation: Rethinking dignity through prosocial activist networks in Europe

The reception crisis in Europe highlights the presence of migration policies aimed at controlling the access of migrants, thereby consolidating a model of governance centred on security and deterrence rather than on reception and the protection of rights. This situation underscores the need for grassroots interventions capable of restoring value and visibility to migrants. In this context, prosocial activism may emerge as a political–humanitarian practice carried out through associative networks that support undocumented migrants. The forms of care and solidarity enacted by these collectives are not conceived merely as expressions of empathy towards others, but as acts of political claim-making that reconstruct the meanings of inclusion. Such interventions may therefore be understood as acts of reparation aimed at recognising the presence of migrants within the European territory and restoring the dignity undermined by discriminatory institutions. Drawing on 43 narrative interviews with members of prosocial activist networks in Spain, Belgium and Italy, analysed through computational text analysis and hermeneutic interpretation, the study examines how activists transform care and solidarity into reparative practices that respond to the systemic dehumanisation of undocumented migrants. The findings show that these networks enact grassroots reparation through three distinct logics – symbolic, radical and institutional – which vary across national contexts yet collectively reconstruct dignity as a relational and political process. Rather than treating reparation as a derivative of institutional recognition, the analysis foregrounds how dignity is continuously redefined through situated civic engagement where state mechanisms fail.