Dr Marco Perolini
“We are all refugees”: Migrant justice movements and human rights from below
Wednesday May 14, 12-13.30 pm, OLD 3.24
Migrant justice movements reinterpret and expand legal concepts of human rights, including the right to asylum, freedom of movement, and the legal definition of refugee. For instance, when engaging in collective actions contesting border regimes, migrant justice organisations in Berlin (Germany) call for unrestricted freedom of movement, challenging nation-states and their bordered territoriality. Does this mean that these actors completely reject legal rights? Do they mobilise autonomously from the state, given the role of states in sustaining border regimes?
This seminar addresses these questions by offering ethnographic insights that emphasise how migrant justice movements in Germany construct human rights between state recognition and autonomy. These novel notions of human rights emerge from processes through which racialised migrants from the Global South develop a shared understanding of the mechanisms of oppression that they face in Germany and collectively mobilise with white citizen actors to address them. What is the emancipatory potential of these novel notions of human rights for racialised migrants in Europe? How do these movements contribute to foregrounding debates regarding reparations for colonialism and slavery, and racial justice?