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Marieke Schöning
of fact, this does not preclude classifying an action as a form of active citizenship, even
if it is not outspokenly associated with political intentions. To clarify, Boekelo (2016) has
written that “political activity is not a matter of consciousness (nor contention), but rather
just that: an activity that affects the status quo. It’s in the effects of the things people do
that the political lies” (240). Active citizenship of this kind mostly takes place at the local
level and focuses on concrete issues and interpersonal relations (Onyx, Kenny & Brown,
2012).
A phenomenon frequently studied in conjunction with active citizenship is that of volun-
tary engagement. This field of study offers insights into questions about what motivates
people to engage as active citizens. The respective literature converges on the duality
of altruism and self-interest (cf. Hardill & Baines, 2011). At the heart of the discussion
lies the role social capital plays for volunteers and their communities (Kenny et al., 2015,
88f.). Social capital is basically built in individual or collective networks of mutual support,
which can have ‘bonding’ or ‘bridging’ character (Putnam, 2000). Bonding ties exist be-
tween members of rather intimate communities and are essential for feelings of personal
identity and belonging. Bridging ties relate to those connections outside of immediate
proximity, which are often more formal, since they cannot rely on a great amount of trust
yet. Kenny et al. (2015) locate volunteers as “network nodes” with bonding as well as
bridging capabilities, which attests them a “vital gatekeeping role” (91).
Turning to questions of citizen identity, the idea of civil commitment refers to an inner
moral duty of showing respect and solidarity towards fellow citizens. This sense of moral
duty is only partly a deliberative process, but greatly based on one’s identification with
other ‘fellow’ human beings, which “establishes moral salience, the feeling that moves
us beyond a generalized sympathy at the plight of others to a felt imperative to act to
alleviate another’s suffering” (Monroe, 2015, 100). Boekelo (2016) transfers this individual
perspective into the broader political realm when he speaks of ‘imagined moral communi-
ties’ to signify different forms of citizen identifications beyond the nation state, expanding
Benedict Anderson’s (1991) influential idea. In short, individual citizen identity is a multi-
layered construct of multiple subject positions, mutually produced by our experiences of
identity verification and discourses about belonging in society (cf. Mouffe, 1992; 1995).
Identity befits a central role in understanding how individuals become active citizens
through feeling morally obligated to enhance the lives of fellow citizens of the imagined
moral communities they associate with.
With respect to the term ‘refugee’, the study does not define it in solely legal terms. Leba-
non hosts the highest number of displaced Syrians per capita. In fact, given the historical-
ly close ties between both countries, the diversity in socioeconomic backgrounds among
Syrians in Lebanon is vast, but rarely perceived from outside the region. Chatty (2015)
has found that many Syrians in Lebanon do not identify as refugees, even when they were
displaced by the conflict. The term ‘refugee’ therefore becomes fluid and situational in
