A solidarity city for everyone: Postmigrant inclusion epitomised by the Zuri City Card

Abstract

This contribution uses the example of the Zuri City Card to study the opportunities afforded by solidarity city concepts from the perspective of a protagonist involved in the process. The Zuri City Card prompts us to ask some very basic questions about the unifying potential of urban solidarity initiatives to create connections that rise above border-drawing processes based on legal status, nation state, or descent (Terkessidis 2017). The chapter starts from the thesis that this campaign in Zurich is also relevant for other cities and regions in Europe since the Zuri City Card can serve as a model for urban options for action in restrictive national policy environments. After a brief introduction to the history of solidarity city campaigns (section 2) and setting out the state of the research on solidarity city movements in Europe (section 3), the article sets out our theoretical approach in further detail, inspired by the approaches of urban citizenship, inclusion and postmigration (section 4). The chapter then examines the introduction of the Zuri City Card based on an interview with Bea Schwager, one of the card’s proponents (section 5). The contribution ends by considering future implications of solidarity city concepts in an unequal world (section 6).