Cross-group friendship and collective action in community solidarity initiatives  with displaced people and resident/nationals

 Introduction: In Ireland, people seeking asylum (displaced people) receive  accommodation in a system called “Direct Provision” (DP) while they wait for their  applications for protection to be processed. The living conditions of DP have been  described as illegal and inhumane by national and international human rights groups,  and the system exacerbates the social exclusion of displaced people. Community  responses to DP by displaced people and resident/nationals of Ireland include the  creation of informal groups called community solidarity initiatives (CSI), through  which cross-group friendships are forged by participation in shared cultural activities.  We hypothesized that, compared to non-CSI participants, participants of CSI would  report more cross-group friendships, and that more cross-group friendships would  predict stronger collective action intentions to support the campaign to end DP,  especially among resident/nationals. Methods: We recruited residents/nationals and displaced persons with and without  CSI experience to complete a self-report questionnaire (n = 199), measuring cross-group friendship, collective action intentions, and intergroup attitudes. Data were  collected between July 2020 and March 2021, using a combination of online and  paper surveys. We conducted ANOVA and conditional process analyses on the data  to test our hypotheses. Results: As predicted, CSI participants reported more contact with cross-group  friends and stronger collective action intentions than non-participators. Conditional  process analysis indicated that CSI participation facilitated resident/nationals’ political  solidarity with displaced people through cross-group friendship. Discussion: Findings identify the role of group membership in the relationship  between contact and collective action for migrant justice, illustrating the potential  of CSI to bolster intergroup solidarity and social cohesion through shared activities  and cross-group friendship. As such, findings make an important contribution to the  literature on intergroup contact, solidarity, and social cohesion, and will be relevant  for community practitioners, civil society organisations, NGOs, and policy makers