‘Ordinary people like myself’: Character work and modesty in the Refugees Welcome movement

ABSTRACT
 This article uses discourse analysis to investigate how British volunteers involved in the Refugees Welcome movement give an account of their engagement and of the changes that they aim to achieve through their actions. Focusing on the different ways participants ‘do modesty’ when they present their actions and their own role within the movement, we show that ‘character work’ – their effort to shape their own reputation – is an essential feature of their discourse. In particular, we show that, by presenting themselves as 'modest' and 'ordinary' participants, they aim to display a character that is distinct from the heroic figure of the social activist and the humanitarian actor. In so doing, they construct a character that resists categorisations and an engagement which aims to appeal to universal values and emotions.


Introduction
Since the so-called 'long summer of migration' in 2015, grass-roots charities and networks have emerged to provide daily assistance to refugees at the EU borders and in different spaces within the European territory (train stations, camps, detention centres, refugee shelters, schools and universities …). Often labelled as the Refugees Welcome movement, these initiatives have brought together volunteers whodespite and against prevailing anti-refugee policies in Europewanted to host refugees in their home, offer language courses, emotional support, legal and welfare assistance, or provide emergency assistance at the borders (Agustín & Jørgensen, 2019;Della Porta, 2018). In so doing, these volunteerswho were often new in the refugee support sectorhave created original forms of compassionate engagement that bridge logics of humanitarian action and solidarity struggles, of daily assistance to refugees and opposition to power-holders (DeBono & Mainwaring, 2020;Maestri and Monforte, 2020;Vandevoordt, 2019).
Through the analysis of how ordinary participants in the Refugees Welcome movement give an account of their own experience of volunteering, this article aims to analyse how they make sense of their engagement and how they present their own role within the movement. In line with Kathleen Blee's analysis of the narratives produced by participants in social movements, we aim to explore 'how people experience themselves as activists' (Blee, 2016, p. 67), in particular in order to capture how this experience differs from other social experiences. 1 More generally, following Jasper et al. (2018, p. 114), we aim to analyse the 'character work'the 'efforts to shape the reputations of strategic players into familiar types of protagonists'done by people who engage in social movements and/or charities. Indeed, although this is often overlooked in the literature, character work is an essential part of the cultural work done by collective actors. As 'strategic players', participants in social movements and charity organisations work on their reputation in order to find allies, vilify the opponents, encourage participation, inspire action, construct collective identities and retain membership (see also Benford & Hunt, 1992). Arguably, character work can also be an end in itself: having a good reputation is satisfying in emotional terms for members of social movements or charities (Whittier, 2001).
In conjunction with these perspectives, particular attention will be given to the ways participants in the Refugees Welcome movement present the changes that they have achievedor that they aim to achievethrough their actions. As we will develop below, the literature on social movements shows that activists' discourses about the personal, social, political or cultural changes that they can achieve through their collective actions are central to the emergence, features and evolutions of social movements. With these stories, activists often highlight their sense of agency and courage, which allows them to put forward a 'heroic' character (Jasper et al., 2018). Our in-depth discourse analysis of a small sample of interviews with volunteers engaged in the British refugee support sector (selected from a larger set of interviews in this field) shows that, in contrast with this effort to portray activists as bearers of significant changes and as 'heroes', members of the Refugee Welcome movement tend to depict themselves as modest actors. Indeed, the focus on the way they present their role and the actual or potential changes that motivate their engagement shows that they express diffidence in many subtle ways, in particular by minimizing the impact of their action as well as, more generally, their own sense of agency. This article examines the discursive strategies of modest self-presentation within a broader theoretical framework of social movement and charity discourse. Our central argument is that modesty plays a central role in the definition of their character as well as the meaning that they give to their engagement. As they are asked to present how they experience themselves as members of the Refugees Welcome movement, our respondents perform modesty and ordinariness in order to distinguish themselves from other figures, namely that of the social or political activist and that of the humanitarian actor. In other words, modesty is a way for our respondents to define a new (hybrid) form of compassionate engagement, which does not fully belong to the register of protest or to that of humanitarian action. Moreover, modesty is a way to encourage the participation of people from different horizons, as it leads to present their engagement as a natural, simple, almost banal and universalyet, rewardingexperience.
In the first section of this article, we link the literature on modesty in discourse analysis to the scholarship on social movements and charities, referring to studies that have analysed the 2015 Refugee Welcome movement. Then, we briefly present our methods. Finally, turning to our empirical findings, we highlight the different ways through which our respondents perform modesty when they present their engagement, showing more generally how this specific character work relates to the construction of hybrid engagement processes in contemporary societies.

Modesty and Character Work in Social Movements
The reference to past and present victories and the display of positive emotions and values such as pride and bravery is an essential feature of the discursive strategies followed by social movement organisations and activists. To recruit members, inspire action and sustain protest on the long term, social movements produce discoursesespecially personal storiesthat highlight the agency and courage of participants as well as their successes in bringing about social changes (Davis, 2002;Polletta, 2006). For example, discourses about social movements' victories can generate a 'cognitive liberation' (McAdam, 1982) among existing and potential participants, which can reinforce allegiances, extend networks and strengthen protest (Futrell, 2003). From a more general perspective, Gamson (1992) argues that agency (the awareness that it is possible to change conditions and policies through protest) is an essential feature of the collective action frames that inspire and legitimate protest. Also, stories about activists' courage and social movements' successes can reinforce collective identities and move people into action (Polletta et al., 2011;Schudson, 2012). Similarly, stories that portray activists as heroes and that underline the positive outcomes of their protest can produce emotional changesin particular, feelings of empowerment, liberation and prideamong participants, which translate into sustained engagements (Jasper et al., 2018).
From this perspective, studies have shown how the cultural work done by LGBTQ activists aims to demonstrate that, instead of being subdued, they proudly display their sense of empowerment and agency in the public space (Bruce, 2016). Similarly, the Civil Rights Movement has based its protest on the construction of Black pride, celebrating black culture, African Heritage and successful resistance by charismatic figures against prevailing racism in the USA (Rhea, 1997). Also, movements mobilizing in contexts of repression and exclusion highlight the courage and agency of activists as well as the transformative outcomes of their actions in order to fight against negative feelings of fear, isolation and disempowerment among its members (Gould, 2009;Monforte, 2021). Similarly, scholars working on the use of memory in social movements have shown the importance of narratives and personal stories that construct myths about past victories (Armstrong & Crage, 2006;Tetrault, 2014). More recently, studies on the Black Lives Matter movement point out how its founders and activists celebrate its national and international success and influence throughout their discourse (Hillstrom, 2018;Lebron, 2017).
As shown by Jasper et al. (2018), narratives about successes and victories are a crucial feature of the 'character work' done by activists. As 'strategic players', activists aim to shape their own reputation and that of their allies and opponents, referring to typical and relatable figures in popular imagination. In particular, the figure of the victim transforming into a charismatic hero in the course of protest allows activists to inspire supporters and potential participants. More generally, it allows activists to link the successes and victories of social movements with the character of individual participants. The suggestion of many stories highlighting the heroic character of activists is that it is through courage and determination that victories can be achieved. From this perspective, character work can be understood as a discursive strategy that aims to inspire protest by attracting attention and sympathy (Jasper et al., 2018, p. 116). More generally, it is a strategy of self-presentationa rhetoricthat allows participants to publicly display their moral worth and how they make sense of their own engagement. As developed by Jasper et al. (2018), it allows participants to transmit meaning and emotions to an audience. Referring to Lubbock's (1957) reflection, they argue that it is a way to make sense of the world around us: 'Nothing is simpler than to create for oneself the idea of a human being, a figure and a character, from a series of glimpses and anecdotes. Creation of this kind we practice every day; we are continually piecing together our fragmentary evidence about the people around us and molding their images in thought. It is the way in which we make our world' (Lubbock 1957: 7).
Although the scholarship on protest and contentious politics has devoted much attention to the construction of empoweredoften heroiccharacters in social movements, there is still a lack of research on other forms of character work. Arguably, participants in social movements can aim to construct different types of characters, for different purposes. This is what we aim to analyse through the focus on a character that contrasts with the heroic activist: the modest actor. As a matter of fact, as we will develop below, our discourse analysis shows that members of the Refugee Welcome movement consistently display many forms of modesty, a trait of character that requires theoretical analysis before we examine its expression.
Modesty, as a virtue and a trait of character, has been explored by many social theorists. Allhoff (2009) summarizes scholarly debate on modesty in terms of (under) estimating one's self-worth, arguing that modesty is a matter of disposition rather than actual behaviour. Following Schueler (1997), who defines modesty as the lack of one's desire for other people to be impressed by one's accomplishments, he claims that 'modesty consists in being disposed to avoid bragging' (Allhoff, 2009, p. 181). Statman (1992), also speaking of humility and, rejecting Driver's (1989) conception of modesty as the unconscious under-estimation of one's value, asserts that a modest person knows to be admirable but does not show it, in accordance with the moral respect of other human beings. From a similar perspective, Ben-Ze'ev (1993:, p. 235) argues that modesty is an evaluative virtue which is based on an egalitarian ethos: 'the agent evaluates his or her fundamental human worth as similar to that of other people; in this sense, the agent is a type of egalitarian' (see also Mansbridge, 1990).
Experimental studies in social psychology show that there is a tension between an understanding of modesty as a trait of character and as a conduct. The literature shows that modesty is often seen favourably in everyday life. Already from a young age, children know that modest behaviour is valued more positively than immodest behaviour in social interactions, thus showing greater sensitivity to the interpersonal dynamics of social situations (Banerjee, 2000). Such studies often imply that modesty must be defined as a characteristic of action (as part of an interaction) rather than a trait of character. This means that, depending on the context and as part of a strategic impression management, a person may act modestly in one situation and not in another. In discursive interaction, this means that speakers must have a context model in which beliefs about the positive evaluation of the recipient control what one says and how one does so. In a study on strategic self-presentation and likeability, Robinson et al. (1995) find that there must be a balance between self-deprecation and self-enhancingboth valued negatively, though for different reasons. In a prototype analysis of everyday understandings of modesty, Gregg et al. (2008, p. 978) find that 'modest people emerged centrally as humble, shy, solicitous, and not boastful and peripherally as honest, likeable, not arrogant, attention-avoiding, plain, and gracious'. In this case, though, modesty is attributed to people as a trait or personality characteristics, and not as a property of action or interaction, although it might be inferred that modest people act modestly in all or most situations, or maybe whenever such conduct is found to be appropriate.
In our discourse analytical framework, modesty should be defined as a property of talk in interaction, but in a broader perspective in which speakers also cognitively monitor, through their context models, how to speak appropriately. This relates to the pragmatic aspect of interaction, for example politeness. Leech (1983) in his introduction to pragmatics, lists several politeness principles, one of which is the 'Maxim of Politeness', which implies minimizing praise of self or maximizing dispraise of self. From this perspective, conversation analytical studies have examined how speakers respond to praise, and show that, especially in some cultureas is the case for Chinese cultureit is polite to minimize praise (Spencer-Oatey & Ng, 2001). Similarly, using a social script approach, Han (2011) shows that denial of success is often met by enhanced praise of admirers, and argues that modesty has the function of provoking such enhanced praise.
From the few empirical and conversational studies of modesty in interaction, we may conclude, first of all, that modesty always needs to be studied as a property of interaction and, secondly, that it always depends on various aspects of the sociocultural context in which this interaction takes place, the dynamics of social relations between participants relations (e.g., power relations or social status), and strategies of impression management. This perspective can be linked to Jasper et al. (2018) notion of 'character work': it is something that social movement organisations and activists do intentionallyoften for strategic purposesas part of their more general cultural work. This character work, however, is constrained by the broader cultural context in which it takes place: the types of reputation that social movements and activists construct for themselves have to resonate within society; peoplein particular fellow activists, supporters and potential activistshave to be able to relate to them (Williams, 2004).
It is clear that some of these properties of talk in interaction apply to interviews with volunteers engaged in helping refugees. As is the case in all interaction, participants want to make a good impression on the interviewers, first of all by complying with the request of being interviewed, and then by their efforts to reply to questionsefforts that actually are expressed by questions of interviewees about whether they have replied to a question, as does Jane, one of our participants, when she asks 'Does that answer your question?'. Arguably, however, 'doing modesty' is also related to the character work of collective actors. By presenting themselves as modest agents, volunteers aim to shape their own reputation in order to give a specific meaning to their engagement, which resonates with the broader cultural context in which they are embedded. Therefore, 'doing modesty' should be understood both as a property of a talk in interaction as well as a more general process of (strategic) construction of their character (or reputation) as members of the Refugees Welcome movement. 2

Context and Methods
Our analysis is based on a set of 147 in-depth interviews with British and French volunteers engaged in the refugee support sector. Our sample includes participants involved in different types of organisations: professionalized and centralized charities that were active before 2015, as well as more informal and decentralized charities and networks that emerged since the 2015 'refugee crisis'. Also, our sample comprises participants who dedicate to different types of activities: offering legal advice, providing emotional and therapeutic support, organizing donations of food and clothes in the Calais 'jungle', hosting refugees, and offering language courses. Although our respondents have different profiles (in terms of age, gender and socio-economic background), it should be noted that a large part of them are women, retired, and identified as white and middle-class. The interviews were conducted between May 2017 and November 2019 in London, Birmingham, Sheffield and the Midlands in Britain, and in Paris, Nantes and the Calais region in France. 3 For this article, we selected six representative interviews of British participants in order to carry out an in-depth analysis of their discourses, focusing especially on their narratives about their own experience of volunteering and on their evaluation of the impact of their engagement. Among the different forms of engagement in our sample, we selected participants who volunteer regularly in the Calais region so that we could focus on comparable experiences. The discursive strategies of self-presentation that we present below were identified inductively, particularly in the responses to our questions about their personal trajectories, the values that motivate their engagement, their relationship with refugees, their concrete practice of volunteering, and what they aim to achieve through their action.
Our analysis takes place within the general framework of discourse studies (De Fina & Georgakopoulou, 2020). In this multidisciplinary field, many methods are used to do various kinds of discourse analysis, focusing for instance on the study of grammar, style, rhetoric, narrative, argumentation, speech acts and conversational interaction. Since interviews are a form of interaction, the focus in this article is on the ways the interviewees present themselves to the interviewers. There is a vast literature on self-presentation, facework and impression management, especially in social psychology (see, e.g., Leary, 1996), since the ground-breaking work of Erving Goffman (1959). In this article, we focus more closely on the actual talk of the interviewers in an approach closer to Conversation Analysis (Sidnell & Stivers, 2012), which relates to narrative analysis (the volunteers tell stories of their experiences), pragmatics (for the study of politeness as a display of modesty), and the social psychology of selfpresentation. Related to other studies of 'doing X' in talkfor instance, 'doing solidarity' (Nightingale et al., 2017) or 'doing sympathy' (Pudlinski, 2005)we scrutinized both local and global strategies of doing modesty. As we will now develop, this form of interactional self-presentation is expressed in many structures at several levels of discourse, such as diminutives, metaphors, adverbs, modal expressions or modes of storytelling.

Doing Modesty: Intentionality and Ordinariness in Volunteers' Discourses
Throughout the interviews, our respondents use different conversational markers and strategies to present themselves as 'modest' and 'ordinary' actors. These markers and strategies relate to their motivations for joining the Refugees Welcome movement, the changes that they aim to achieve (or that they have achieved), as well as to their own role within the movement. Overall, the discourse analysis shows that our respondents tend to downplay their own agency as well the significance of their action, in particular by minimizing the intentionality of their engagement in the movement and the impact of their activities. Three specific ways of 'doing modesty' can be identified: the presentation of their engagement as spontaneous and unplanned; the definition of their engagement as something that 'they can't help'; the presentation of their activity as something 'ordinary' and without much impact.
-Volunteering as a spontaneous engagement One of the most common conversational markers of modesty is the adverb just, one of the most frequent (N = 577) words that can be found in the interviews we analysed. As an adverb, just has several meanings and pragmatic functions. For example, it can have a temporal meaning, implying ideas such as 'a short time ago' or 'a short while after'. Also, the word 'just' can emphasize an assertion, for example in opposition to a possible doubt of a recipient. Beyond these meanings and functions, the use of the word 'just' can suggest modesty. In particular, the analysis shows that our respondents often use the word 'just' in an emphatic way, in order to make assertions about happenings, as it is frequent in expressions such as 'it just so happened'. This is, for example, the case in the following assertion made by a participant based in the Midlands when she was asked about the timing of her involvement in her network: I: So, you said you saw the picture of Alan Kurdi. So, and after two weeks you found out about [name of the network]? R: It was like literally that week … I: Okay. R: cause it, it just all kind of happened all at the same, it's like some sort of … I: Yeah. R: … it just all happened at the same time. (Jane,31,Midlands) Later in the interview, the same respondent makes a similar assertion, again through the use of the discursive marker 'just'. When she describes her experience of volunteering, she argues that it is 'just completely all consuming': And we've made such deep friendships with people because apart from France and Calais then we started helping local refugees. So, then it's just completely all consuming, everything. (…) It just becomes you. (Jane,31,Midlands) As these examples illustrate, the way participants talk about their volunteering suggests that the motivations for their engagement are beyond their control, that it just 'happened to them' and that they have no other choice than to become fully engaged in their network. More generally, the analysis shows that the word just is also often used as a semantic down-toner which implies modesty: it can be paraphrased as 'only' or 'not more than'. This is, for example, the case of the same respondent, when she describes how she learned about the group she got involved in: So, I just by chance came across a facebook group called [name of the organisation] (Jane,31,Midlands) Here, the word just combined with by chance conveys the meaning that she did not consciously plan to get involved in this group specifically. More generally, this leads her to present her engagement as a sort of happenstance, almost an accident, rather than a conscious and strategic choice. This idea of an accidental engagement is also suggested by other participants, when they explain how they got involved into their group. Here, again, the decision to join the movement is presented as not being planned and premeditated: Well, it all kind of happened by accident. (…) And yeah, just, then [name of a friend] kind of discovered the camp at Dunkirk by accident (…). So yeah, it was all kind of, it was all kind of a happy accident really [laughs] (Jason, 45, Midlands) Yeah, we, again we didn't really plan any of this but things have evolved over, certainly over the two years (John,61,Midlands) The examples show that these expressions, which we may call 'modesty moves', often combine different mitigating markers (such as just and kind of) to tone down participants' own agency and to express vagueness, as observed in many types of language use, discourse and interaction (see, e.g., Ballmer & Pinkal, 1983;Bhatia, 2005;Channell, 1985;Gruber, 1993;Jackson, 2002;Solt & Partee, 2015). A similar process can be observed when participants describe the unfolding of their action: modesty markers (such as just) are frequently used to downplay the strategic dimension of their actions, as is the case in the following examples: And then it just completely snowballed from there during the facebook group which grew very rapidly in a few weeks. I would be spending this money anyway, so I just booked the Eurostar, booked the cheapest hotel I could find and just got myself there. (Sarah,77,London) As these examples illustrate, volunteers tend to downplay the significance of their activities in various ways: they are presented as the result of a mechanicalunplanned and spontaneousprocess (expressed in the snowball metaphor in the first example and the lack of plan in the second interview extract), and as something one can do easily with a little time and money (examples three and four). Overall, these examples convey the meaning that they got involved in their charity spontaneously and that their engagement is something that 'just happened to them': it does not require any form of strategic planning or specific expertise.
-'I was drawn to it': experiences and emotions that move The use of a language which tends to downplay the intentionality of participants' own engagement is reinforced by the analysis of discursive markers related to their life experiences and emotions. Indeed, when they describe the reasons why they decided to join the Refugees Welcome, our respondents often explain that this is an automatic and natural consequence of their past life experience and emotions. They argue that, due to events that they have lived in the past and to the emotions that they felt (in particular, during the 'refugee crisis'), they 'can't help' doing what they do; their engagement is framed as being out of their personal control. For instance, this is illustrated by the first respondent we presented above. When asked why she decided to engage in the field of refugee support, she argues that this is linked to her childhood experience: Maybe it's, you know, some sort of repressed memory from playground when I was [laughs] on my own not being played with or something. (Jane,31,Midlands) In the same interview, she concludes by explaining that her involvement in her charity is connected to her general character ('I'm just the sort of person'), implying thus that she is naturally drawn to helping others: And I was just … I'm just the sort of person that would help the one person who isn't being helped by anybody else, regardless of why they were like that. (Jane,31,Midlands) In the interviews, other participants display similar discursive moves to link their own personal experience with their engagement. For example, many respondents refer to the fact that they have lived abroad or that they live in a multicultural area and know about other cultures. Also, some respondents refer to their family history, mentioning for example that their family had fled the Nazi regime or had helped refugees during WW2. For instance, this is the case of a participant active in the Midlands and who travels regularly to Calais: I'd always had an interest in equality and things like that and I think seeing if there was anything I could do to help with those things. And my own personal experience, I realised that my own, my own mother had been a refugee herself during the Second World War. And I hadn't really realised that because it, it wasn't the traditional kind of a refugee, she, she lived here in [name of the city] during the Second World War and at the beginning of the Second World War she was evacuated along with lots of other children cause she was only eleven years old. And moved out to villages in the countryside living with complete strangers for the whole duration of the war, so for more or less five and a half years she was split apart from her parents and I suddenly realised well that's the same thing. (John,61,Midlands) As these examples illustrate, participants often frame their engagement as a logical outcome of their life experience rather that something that they intentionally choose and plan. Thus, this idea is explicitly voiced in the interview with Jane, in particular through the repetition of the expression 'I was drawn to it': With refugees it just seemed, I was drawn to it, I was definitely drawn to it and I think I was drawn to it because it seemed like they were so isolated. (Jane,31,Midlands) Further analysis shows that the references that participants make to their feelings relate to a similar process: emotions are presented as another force that is largely beyond their controlas something that happens to themand that is moving them to engage. The role of emotions and their relation to volunteering and humanitarian actionfor instance in the form of sympathy, empathy, compassion, sadness or angerhas been widely studied in the literature, including in the refugee support sector (Dacyl 1992; Gately 2018; Morgan 2020). These studies show that emotions are a crucial factor that explains the emergence and development of compassionate actions. In line with this idea, our respondents explain in the interviews that they are often moved by feelings of sadness and pity, referring in particular to the mediatisation of the 'refugee crisis' in 2015. They also describe their feelings of anger and injustice linked to the prevailing lack of assistance of public authorities. The reference to these emotions (whether sadness, pity or anger) often functions as a modesty move as it leads participants to downplay their own agency. This is for example visible in two different parts of an interview with the same respondent: And just, yeah, just the blatant hypocrisy of it all just really pissed me off. And the human tragedy of it all just really upset me, so I just had to get involved, I had to try and do what I could to alleviate the situation, you know. So yeah. (…) I follow my gut feeling, if something feels right, I'll get involved with it.
(Jason, 45, Midlands) And then, but then I just felt like I wanted to do more. (Jason,45,Midlands) From a similar perspective, a participant active in the Midlands explains how he was moved by the picture of Alan Kurdi (the little boy who was found on a beach in September 2015 and whose picture has been widely circulated in media across Europe) to 'just do something': Okay, yes, it started just over two years ago when I first saw pictures on the television which were of various tragedies around Europe particularly in Greece. And I think there was one that seemed to touch many, many people in this country of a young child's body that was found on the beach. And a policeman was carrying him up the beach and, and that was really, I think the trigger for me. I just thought at that time I, we ought to do something about this and maybe we could do something, we, whatever it is just do something. (John,61,Midlands) These examples show that, similarly to what we have shown above, the expression of emotions is often combined with the modesty marker just, as well as with the reference to an inner force (had to). These markers convey the meaning that participants are drawn to engage in the movement rather than intentionally and actively choosing and planning to do so. More generally, the way participants refer to their past experience and to their emotions shows how modesty is a central part of their character work: the decision to engage in the movement is presented through the downplaying of their own agency.
-'A spit in the ocean': volunteering as an 'ordinary' activity The last modesty move in participants' narratives relates to the way they present their action. The discourse analysis shows that, throughout the interviews, our respondents minimize the impact of their action, in particular by downplaying the scope of the change that they can make. Here again, this can be observed in the way respondents use discursive markers such as just and metaphors that visually stress their diminutive role. This is, for example the case in the following interview extracts, in which participants respond to questions about the objectives and the impact of their action: I'm, I'm fairly, I don't believe that me going is necessarily going to change the world.
(Mary, 27, London) We're not gonna see any, we're just going to, you know, be a spare cog in a giant machine. (Mary,27,London) We're just putting a plaster, not changing anyone's life, not a big difference.

(Lucy, 38, Midlands)
And it's, people that I, whatever people like me does, it's a spit in the ocean. (Sarah,77,London) As these examples show, participants argue that, in contrast with the objective to 'change the world', their engagement has a limited impact. Thus, as the use of the metaphors (i.e., 'putting a plaster', 'be a spare cog in a giant machine', 'a spit in the ocean') shows, they tend to consider that their engagement can not change the broad structural factors that produce the plight of refugees (the open wound, 'the giant machine', 'the ocean'). This tendency to disconnect their engagement from demands for broad social and political changes goes in line with studies showing how volunteers tend to 'avoid politics', especially when they present or discuss their activities in public (Eliasoph, 1998;Hamidi 2006). Further analysis shows that this tendency to downplay the significance and impact of their activities is often linked to the notion that their engagement is 'easy' and rewarding. 4 This is, for example, illustrated in the interviews with two participants, based in the Midlands and in London: And not too expensive, it's very doable. And I can drive to Calais and back in the time it would take me to get to [name of the city] you know. So why not do it myself and know that it's being done.
(Jane, 31, Midlands) It worked around my shifts at work and it just, and it was all on facebook so I, it was easy to do.
(Jane, 31, Midlands) And it's quite pleasant in a way, kind of, retreat from this life here. (Sarah,77,London) These extracts show that volunteering activities are presented as close to other, mundane, social experiences of participants. They are described as easily 'doable', and it is therefore implied that they are accessible to people from different horizons. Far from the figure of the hero who sacrifices personally in order to push for broad social and political change, their engagement is presented in a way that makes it relatable and easy to combine with work or family life. The meaning that is conveyed is that their engagement does not imply a big commitment and that, therefore, it is not aimed at achieving substantial changes. Moreover, as the last extract suggests, their engagement is often presented as 'pleasant' and rewarding as it leads participants to experience something new. From this perspective, the volunteering activities are often presented in a way to stress their accessibility and the positivity of the personal experience rather than their systemic impact (for a similar perspective, see Malkki, 2015).
More generally, the analysis shows that volunteering activitiesand their actual or potential impactare presented as basic and ordinary (as opposed to extraordinary, both in the sense of remarkable and unusual). In particular, the use of discursive markers such as pervasive downtoners ( just, a bit, basically) or the vague quantifier some is revealing. This is the case, for example, when participants evoke the values and emotions that guide their activities: We spent about a month each time out there, just working in the camps basically, and just, you know, distributing aid and just giving people moral support, and just befriending people, and just tryna, you know, bring a bit of humanity into their situation really. (Jason,45,Midlands) What ultimately it shows is a hand of friendship and some compassion and humanity which is they have not seen a lot of in their situation where they've got.
(Jane, 31, Midlands) And it's just humanity and compassion and kindness and friendship and understanding and respect. (Jane,31,Midlands) We are still showing that tiny drop of humanity to these people. (Sarah,77,London) As these examples illustrate, volunteers relate their engagement to a set of universal and basic values ('kindness', 'friendship', 'compassion', 'humanity') to stress the ordinariness of their activities. In these extracts, this idea is reinforced by the use of metaphors ('a hand', 'that tiny drop') that convey modesty. The implied meaning is that there is nothing remarkable about their engagement and their activities. They are ordinary, in the sense that they are a natural and common (non-exceptional) thing to do. More generally, this conveys the meaning that compassionate engagements involve 'ordinary people', as a participant based in London argued when we asked her about the profile of volunteers in her sector: I've got all these examples of ordinary people like myself who are just doing their little bit. (Sarah,77,London) This focus on the ordinariness of their activities and, more generally, their engagement leads them to distance themselves from the figure of the hero. This is for example explained by a participant who evokes her ambivalent feelings when she received an award for the work that she has done with her charity: I won a [name of the place] award last year because a' the work we do. And it was amazing and to have been nominated was incredible. To have won was a shock because I don't do nearly as much as other people do. And I'm very grateful and it's an honour but it's not something I'm gonna shout off of the rooftops because I'm a hero, you know. (…) It's not about being any, the thing for me is it's not about being any different to anyone else, it's just humanity. That's all it is. I'm not a hero, I'm not an angel, I'm just helping people, you know. (Jane,31,Midlands) As this example shows, the figure of the hero is used to underscoreby contrasttheir own modest character ('it's not something I'm gonna shout off of the rooftops because I'm a hero'). More generally, this extract shows how participants refer to universal values ('it's just humanity') to downplay the significance of their activities. Here, again, the reference to these values (presented as basic and normal with the signifier just) leads them to highlight the ordinary nature of their engagement ('it's not about being any different to anyone else') and the modesty of its impact ('I'm just helping people').

Discussion and Conclusion
As the analysis of our respondents' discourses about their own engagement and experience demonstrates, modesty and ordinariness are central features of the character work done by volunteers involved in the Refugees Welcome movement: as they present their own role and their activities in the movement, our participants display a reputation of modesty and humility which leads them to present their engagement as a modest activity done by 'ordinary people'. This character work (i.e., their effort to shape their own reputation -Jasper et al., 2018) is revealed throughout the interviews, through the extensive use of discursive markers and strategies which downplay their agency and the impact of their activities and which leads to present their engagement as a natural, simple, almost banal and universalyet, rewardingsocial experience.
Overall, the analysis shows that modesty has specific functions in the construction and demonstration of volunteers' character. In particular, it enables participants to define their own role within the movement and, more generally, how they give meaning to their own engagement. Analysed as a way to reveal 'how people experience themselves' (Blee, 2016, p. 67) as volunteers, our respondents' narratives show that the use of modesty allows them to distinguish their own engagement and experience from other types of engagements and experiences. In particular, doing modesty is a way for our respondents to distinguishing themselves from the figure of the 'heroic' activist or humanitarian actor who sacrifices for the 'good cause' and for saving others. We have shown that volunteers who engaged in the Refugees Welcome movement in 2015 are keen to distinguish themselves from social or political activists. Although they can, sometimes, be involved in protest and social movements, they argue that their volunteering activities are not directly related to objectives of structural changes and thatas we have developed elsewhere (Monforte and Maestri, 2023)they rather aim for small, concrete and tangible, outcomes in the life of those they are trying to help. They often portray political activists as idealists and they argue that their own engagement takes place at a different, more mundaneordinarylevel. Similarly, our participants are keen to distinguish themselves from the figure of the humanitarian saviour (Monforte and Maestri, 2022). They are often critical of the unequal power relations (between the helpers and beneficiaries) that emerge from humanitarian action (Fassin 2012) and they aim to challenge these inequalities through the construction of different types of encounters with refugees. As a result, our participants construct a distinct form of character for themselves, which aims to engage around the refugee issue in a different way. Their character is that of the spontaneous, modest and ordinary actor, who is naturally drawn towards helping others. This shows that discourses of modesty and ordinariness are a way to resist established categorisations and memberships (Austin & Fitzgerald, 2007;Sacks, 1995).
More generally, the analysis shows that the display of modesty allows volunteers to present their engagementand their own role within the movementas something that appeals to universal values and feelings, something thatform an egalitarian perspectiveanyone could and should do. Indeed, as Ben-Ze'ev (1993, p. 235) argues modesty is an evaluative virtue which is based on an egalitarian ethos: 'the agent evaluates his or her fundamental human worth as similar to that of other people; in this sense, the agent is a type of egalitarian'. Although doing modesty can, sometimes, lead our participants to 'avoid politics' (Eliasoph, 1998) 5 , our analysis shows that this form of character workin many ways opposed to that of the activist or humanitarian 'hero'is linked to the construction of new, hybrid, forms of prefigurative politics in which agents do politics through mutual aid, mundane changes in their community and small-scale acts of compassion rather than through the objectives of broad social changes or humanitarian emergency support (Bosi & Zamponi, 2020;Monforte, 2020). Notes 1. Although in our case, as we will develop below, our participants present themselves as volunteers (engaged in charities and grass-root support networks) rather than activists (engaged in social movements). Jasper et al. (2018) argue that the 'character work' is mainly done by the leaders of social movements when they communicate with their members and with outsiders, we sustain that it can be also analysed as a more general process that all participants engage with when they are in a situation in which they present (and justify) why they are involved into a movement and what is their role in it. 3. We provide a more detailed presentation ofand reflection aboutour research methods in our project's final report (Monforte et al., 2019). 4. Although it should be noted that this is often ambivalent: many participants evoke the difficulties of being involved in a charity, and in particular the emotional challenges that they have experienced throughout their practice of volunteering. 5. The vast literature on politicisation and depoliticization processes shows that 'doing politics' is based on the acknowledgement of disagreements and conflict (Eliasoph, 1998).

Disclosure Statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).