‘It’s about the power of little people’: The UK Community Sponsorship Scheme, a new space for affective solidarity, civic engagement and activism.

The Community Sponsorship Scheme (CSS) was introduced in 2016 by the UK Government with the aim of accelerating the settlement and integration processes for vulnerable refugee families with the support of local people. Drawing on in-depth interviews with 146 volunteers and 32 individuals from the wider community at five locations where refugees have been placed in Community Sponsorship groups, this article examines how affective solidarity and civic engagement through volunteering have activated different acts of political and social activism. The article explains how volunteers’ advocacy and compassionate ways of acting and may have spread values of inclusion among wider members of their communities. It is contended that the Community Sponsorship Scheme (CSS) is an innovative model of refugee resettlement that is reshaping the relationship between British civil society and the state.