Over the past two years, large-scale migratory movements to Europe have gained worldwide attention, and have prompted ever-greater desires to govern and control them. At the same time, we have seen the emergence of political struggles for rights to movement and demands for greater social justice, in both the global ‘north’ and ‘south’. Throughout the world, political mobilizations by refugees, irregularized migrants and solidarity activists have emerged, demanding and enacting the right to move and to stay, struggling for citizenship and human rights, and protesting the violence and deadliness of contemporary border regimes.
This collection brings together articles that explore political mobilizations in several countries and (border) regions, including Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Austria, Germany, Greece, Turkey and ‘the Mediterranean’. Many of these political mobilizations can be understood as transnational responses to processes of regionalization and the intensification of restrictive border regimes across the globe, and as illustrative of what might be referred to as a ‘new era of protest’.
1. Introduction: the contentious politics of refugee and migrant protest and solidarity movements: remaking citizenship from the margins Ilker Ataç, Kim Rygiel and Maurice Stierl 2. Dying to live: migrant deaths and citizenship politics along European borders: transgressions, disruptions, and mobilizations Kim Rygiel 3. A sea of struggle – activist border interventions in the Mediterranean Sea Maurice Stierl 4. ‘Nacimos de la nada’: border struggles and maternal politics in Mexico Stefanie Kron 5. The tactical politics of ‘humanitarian’ immigration: negotiating stasis, enacting mobility Carolina Moulin and Diana Thomaz 6. Transformations of the undocumented youth movement and radical egalitarian citizenship Helge Schwiertz 7. ‘Refugee Protest Camp Vienna’: making citizens through locations of the protest movement Ilker Ataç 8. Displacement of European citizen Roma in Berlin: acts of citizenship and sites of contentious politics Ayşe Çağlar 9. Notes from a refugee protest: ambivalences of resisting and desiring citizenship Asli Ikizoglu Erensu
Ilker Ataç is a post-doctoral research fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria, and editor of the journal Movements. His research interests are in the area of citizenship studies and migration policies, irregular migration and social movement studies. His work has appeared in the journals Citizenship Studies, Austrian Journal of Political Science, and elsewhere. He is currently working on social membership of non-deported persons. Kim Rygiel is an associate professor at Wilfrid Laurier University, Canada. Her research focuses on migrant solidarity activism in Europe, and her work has been published in Citizenship Studies, European Journal of Social Theory and International Political Sociology. She is author of Globalizing Citizenship (2010) and co-editor (with Peter Nyers) of Citizenship, Migrant Activism, and the Politics of Movement (2012). Maurice Stierl is a visiting assistant professor at the University of California Davis, USA. His research focuses on migration struggles in contemporary Europe and his work has appeared in the journals Globalizations, Citizenship Studies, Movements, Global Society, Antipode and elsewhere. Dr Stierl is a member of the activist project WatchTheMed Alarm Phone.
