The activists opposing border regimes in Berlin still vividly remember the migrant protest camp on Oranienplatz (O-Platz), a square in the neighborhood of Kreuzberg, a decade after its establishment in 2012. For them, the protest camp is the ideal type of mobilization against border regimes; the opportunity for racialized migrants to engage in politics and formulate grievances based on their own experiences of border regimes. O-Platz is remembered as a visible migrant grassroots protest in the backdrop of a history of invisibility of migrant struggles in Germany. In contrast, activists frame their mobilization after O-Platz as invisible and fragmented, despite the emergence of new networks and alliances, which, however, are not led by migrant activists. Collective memory bridges different movement phases and emphasizes the importance of visibility achieved by collective action centered around the experiences of subaltern groups, specifically racialized migrants with precarious legal status. I argue that memory work is crucial for countering the invisibility and erasure of grassroots migrant struggles in Germany. Memory work has an aspirational function as it transforms characteristics of past mobilization into aspirations for the present, especially in a phase where new struggle against border regimes, which are the crucial characteristics for which the protest camp is worth being remembered. Thus, I bridge the literature focusing on the invisibility of migrant grassroots resistance with the growing interest in the role played by memory in social movements. I argue that the memorability of the protest camp does not only stem from the frontline role of migrant activists but is also associated with the context of the mobilization in 2018, which was characterized by changes in terms of players (Jasper, 2014 ). I contribute to the study of memory in movements (Daphi & Zamponi, 2019) by emphasizing the role of collective memory in shaping aspirations for the present, in a context where activists identify discontinuity between present and past mobilization. My contribution emphasizes that memory can have an aspirational function in social movements, particularly in times of change. To develop my arguments, the rest of this paper is organized as follows. First, I discuss the invisibility that characterized grassroots migrant struggles in Germany until O-Platz. Second, I briefly discuss the literature focusing on the interface between memory and social movements to identify the specific contribution of this article. Then, I outline the methods through which I collected the data that I present in this article. In the fourth section, I analyze the collective memories of O-Platz that the activists who mobilized against border regimes in 2018 embraced. I argue that activists framed O-Platz as a turning point and as a form of collective action led by migrant activists. In the fifth

/pdf/we-don-t-remember-the-o-platz-protest-camp-for-the-sake-of-pt9pw60s.pdf

We don't remember the O‐Platz protest camp for the sake of it. Collective memories and visibility of migrant activism in Berlin

В фокусе статьи – отношение чешских утраквистов (гуситов) к Новому Завету, усвоение ими его топики и её практическое применение при выработке собственной идентичности в 1419–1421 гг. Установлено, что в общегуситскую идентичность, за-фиксированную в грамоте Чаславского сейма от 7 июня 1421 г. («те, кто льнут к Божьему Закону»), была имплементирована аффилиация к Евангелию: ядром гуситской идеологии была доктрина утраквизма, которую гуситы аргументировали словами Христа о всеобщем Причастии Чашей, зафиксированными в Евангелии (Мф. 26:27). Тем не менее, в репрезентации и самовосприятии отдельных гуситских группировок роль Нового Завета и его составных частей заметно разнилась. Будучи радикальными фундаменталистами, табориты в 1420 г. отвергли авторитет любых норм человечес-кого происхождения, в т.ч. апостольских Посланий; с другой стороны, именно Евангелие было положено ими в основу собственной идентичности (табориты, досл. «фаворцы», т.е. свидетели Преображения) и доктрины войны не за себя самих, но за Бога и Его Закон. В свою очередь, самовосприятие пражских гуситов базировалось на актуализации ветхозаветных образов, дополненных топикой 12-й главы Откровения (Прага = Иерусалим, пражане = возлюбленные «Божьи люди», потомство Божьей супруги, с которым ведёт войну апокалиптический дракон). Из Евангелия и Посланий пражане черпали лишь то, что никак не противоречило ветхозаветной модели религиозного милитаризма (противостояния праведных грешным). Это объяснимо тем, что им – жаждущим того, чтобы Прага, которую они считали «перворождённой и остальных превосходящей дочерью» Чешской короны, заняла подобающее место в политической иерархии Чешского королевства – оставался чужд идеал новозаветной самоотверженности, воплощавшийся таборитами. The paper is focused on the attitude of the Bohemian Utraquists (Hussites) towards the New Testament and its parts. While the basic identity common to all Hussites (“those who incline to the Law of God”) included an affiliation to Gospel as the sacred text the utraquism is found on (Matthew 26:27), the role of the NT differed as far as the fundamentalistic identity building of single Hussite communities was concerned. The identity of brethern and witnesses of Transfiguration that was common to the Táborites, was based on the Gospel, as well as their self-sacrificing model of the Hussite militarism. In turn, the Prague Hussites identified their town with Jerusalem and themselves with the righteous people who fight for themselves against the sinners and ask God for help: this model of the Hussite militarism is based mainly on the Old Testament supplemented by the Book of Revelation. 

The New Testamentary Topoi in the Hussite Fundamentalism

When the Durban Review Conference (DRC) on racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance ended, on 24 April 2009, with an outcome document, which had been adopted consensually by the 183 participating states,2 there was a great sense of relief as this had proved a long and particularly arduous process whose outcome had seemed uncertain until the last minute. There was also a sense of unease within the European Union (EU) because five EU Member States (Italy, The Netherlands, Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic) had withdrawn from the conference at the last minute, in spite of the fact that the outcome document took all EU concerns into account. As a result, the EU suffered a major and enduring blow to its credibility as a big UN player and supporter of effective multilateralism (European Commission, 2003). Indeed, a few months later, during one of the regular political dialogues between the EU and the African Union (AU), the EU was heavily criticised by AU representatives because, in their own words, there had been one major UN event for the African continent in 2009, i.e. the Durban Review Conference, and the EU had failed to deliver. Clearly, expectations on the part of African countries had been particularly high because, in 2001, the European Union, under the strong leadership of the Belgian minister for foreign affairs, Louis Michel, had contributed in a major way to the success of the Durban Conference. This crucial role was acknowledged by Navi Pillay, the current UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, during another regular EU Political Dialogue, when she reported a recent conversation she had had with Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, the South African minister for foreign affairs in 2001.

The European Union in the 2009 Durban Review Conference

This Special Issue considers the role of civil society, including non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs), in contemporary migration and border governance, with a particular focus on its relationship to states and on its involvement in the control of migration. While civil society is usually opposed to states and markets, the contributions to this special issue show how NGOs and CSOs play a more complex and nuanced role. They document their different activities and attitudes, which range from resistance to (in)direct support to migration/border control, and stress the diversity of NGOs/CSOs, from professionalized international NGOs to local grassroots organizations, and from human rights to humanitarian organizations. Contributions challenge the standard divide between sending and receiving regions, as they examine civil society in different geographical spaces throughout European borderlands, in destination countries like Italy or Germany, in so-called transit states (Ukraine and Libya), and in transnational in-between spaces, such as hotspots in Southern Europe or international waters in the Mediterranean Sea. In so doing, this special issue also highlights the multiple borders/boundaries that shape migrants’ journeys as well as their socio-economic and political status from traditional state borders to legal categories: whether it rescues migrants at sea or provides welfare provision to refugees, civil society is indeed present at all the places where foreigners are included or excluded from the societies in which they find themselves. The role of civil society in migration governance is not only a research issue, but also a sensitive policy concern, not least because borders are key sovereign institutions over which states claim full control. In this context, the 2018 Global Compact for Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (hereafter Global Compact), a non-binding but ambitious UN-sponsored statement on migration policy, puts forward what it calls a ‘whole-of-society approach’, according to which migration governance should rely on ‘multi-stakeholder partnerships’ that would include not only governments, but also non-state actors like migrant diasporas, local communities, civil society, the private sector, or trade unions (United Nations 2019).

/pdf/civil-society-and-migration-governance-across-european-1etjb6iz.pdf

Civil Society and Migration Governance across European Borderlands

This paper analyses the work carried out by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) in Libya from 2009 to 2020 to shed light on its ambivalent relationship to the EU externalisation of migration and border management. While also looking at Libyan organisations, and at initiatives such as EU-funded professionalisation projects, which aim to co-opt the nascent local civil society into the EU border externalisation mechanism, the paper largely focuses on international NGOs, with specific attention being paid to the Italian NGO CIR. The paper shows that even in the difficult Libyan context there is some potential for NGOs/CSOs to radically and effectively oppose EU externalisation, or at least try to do so through activities such as public information and advocacy. However, in a context in which migrants are systematically exposed to a wide range of abuses, and foreign or foreign-funded actors are seen with suspicion, NGOs/CSOs have limited room for manoeuvre. In fact, they mostly end up filling the gaps of the local migration and border management system on behalf of their (European) donors, thus supporting the smooth operation of externalised border management. This is also visible in the way NGOs/CSOs address human rights, interact with donors and local authorities, and perpetuate dichotomies and categorisations that support migration containment policies.

/pdf/bridgeheads-of-eu-border-externalisation-ngos-csos-and-3scim1du.pdf

Bridgeheads of EU border externalisation? NGOs/CSOs and migration in Libya

ABSTRACT Migrant activists with precarious legal status mobilize against border regimes in Berlin under the label of ‘refugees’. They engage in a classification struggle through which they disrupt the legal notion of refugee by reappropriating an externally assigned category. Their struggle is crucial because legal status categories produce an exclusionary system in which only some migrants can obtain residence rights as well as other rights. I contend that migrants, in the context of their mobilization, collectively interpret their structural position vis-a-vis border regimes, characterized by oppression and exclusion. This collective interpretation is associated with the emergence of a refugee* collective identity that disrupts the legal notion of refugee. I argue that migrants mobilize under the label of ‘refugee’ not only for strategic reasons but also because of their shared beliefs regarding the unfairness of the asylum system. The refugee* collective identity not only disrupts exclusionary legal status categories but also interrupts some of the divisions among migrants that border regimes produce. This article contributes to showing that while migrant activism takes place in a political field that is not chosen by migrants, it has an impact on the regulatory framework that characterizes that political field. Moreover, my findings emphasize the importance of the connections between structural forms of oppression, including regulatory frameworks and classificatory systems, and collective identity processes emerging in the mobilization of subaltern groups.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/14742837.2022.2047642?needAccess=true

‘We are all refugees’: how migrant grassroots activism disrupts exclusionary legal categories

ABSTRACT Scepticism often dominates the debate regarding the potential of human rights for eroding border regimes. Powerful actors make use of human rights to justify migration control. However, subaltern groups can also rely on human rights to challenge oppression. In this article, I argue that the ambivalence of human rights must be contextualised within the wider human rights politics pursued by different social actors. By drawing on my ethnography of the social movement contesting border regimes in Berlin, I analyse how different social movement organisations contest deportation and I emphasise crucial differences in their approaches to human rights. More specifically, human rights NGOs, which I conceptualise as moderate organisations, draw on legal notions of human rights and oppose deportations only partially. In contrast, radical organisations oppose all deportations by elaborating non-legal notions of human rights. I contend that NGOs see human rights as imperatives that need to be upheld by the law and state institutions. In contrast, radical organisations conceive of human rights as aspirations for social justice and locate the source of human rights in social struggles. These differential approaches to human rights entail a distinctive potential for eroding border regimes as they underpin different models of migration governance.

Do Human Rights Reinforce Border Regimes? Differential Approaches to Human Rights in the Movement Opposing Border Regimes in Berlin

Roy Brown is a British-born humanist and human rights activist. He is a former president of the International Humanist and Ethical Union (IHEU). The IHEU’s mission is to build and represent the global humanist movement that defends human rights and promotes humanist values worldwide. IHEU sponsors the triennial World Humanist Congress. Based in London, IHEU is an international non-governmental organization (NGO) with Special Consultative Status with the UN (New York, Geneva, Vienna), General Consultative Status at UNICEF (New York) and the Council of Europe (Strasbourg), and maintains operational relations with UNESCO (Paris). IHEU has observer status at the African Commission on Human and People’s Rights. IHEU currently has more than one hundred member organizations in over forty countries, including the American Humanist Association and their Council for Secular Humanism in the United States.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.2979/RAC.2010.3.2.179

Perspectives on Durban II

Human rights often fall short of challenging oppression because they are enmeshed with conservative institutions, such as the law and the state. Despite these shortcomings, grassroots organisations contesting border regimes in Berlin often make use of human rights in their everyday mobilisation. They engage in autonomous forms of mobilisation outside the state and construct non-legal notions of human rights that are emancipatory for racialised migrants. However, these same organisations also address demands to state authorities by using legal notions of human rights. In this article, I draw on the framework focusing on abolition and non-reformist reforms, which have been developed by activists and scholars in their resistance to policing and the Prison-Industrial Complex. I innovatively extend its use to propose a nuanced understanding of grassroots approaches to human rights. Specifically, I argue that these approaches entail the concurrent pursuit of short-term reformist reforms and border abolition.

Limited Tools for Emancipation? Human Rights and Border Abolition

Handle everyday research tasks with reliable, citation-backed results

Your personal Research Agent to handle research tasks with citation-backed results

Popular Tasks used by Researchers

How can I help with your research?

Meet SciSpace

Get more enhanced response by uploading the PDFs you want me to reference.

No relevant PDFs in your library

SciSpace is the AI research assistant for academics. Run systematic literature reviews on 280M+ papers, and write papers with cited sources. Trusted by 1M+ students, PhDs & researchers.

SciSpace | AI for Research

Analyze PDFs

Code & Manuscripts

Funding & Grants

Literature & Patents

Medical & Clinical Data

Systematic Review

Visualize & Present

Web & Data

Build a Google Scholar-like website for your research.

Build a website

Create charts and images for your research

Create a Chart

Write a paper for submission to a journal

Draft a manuscript

Patent Search

Design eye-catching scientific posters in minutes.

Scientific Poster Generation

Systematic Literature Review

One task is running at the moment. Your messages will be shown right after.

Drag and drop or click here to browse

Loved by <highlight>1 million+</highlight> researchers

Extract a list of specific topics and their sources from unstructured text

Topics

Compare and analyze relevant papers that matches with your search

Papers

Get insights from PDFs and bookmarked papers from your library

My library

Recent searches

Try searching for:

Catch AI-generated content in scholarly and non-scholarly content

{ai} Detector

Ai Writer

Get PDF Summaries, highlighted text explanations 

Chat with PDF

Effortlessly create in-text citations and bibliographies in APA and 2,500 other formats

Citation generator

Get explanations, summaries, and answers on academic papers

Ease up your research workflow with {scispace}'s cohort of exciting AI tools

Elevate your academic writing skills and convey your ideas the way you want

Paraphraser

Explore our range of reading and writing tools

Your file is being prepared and should be ready in a few minutes. If it's a large file, it might take a bit longer. You can close this window, and we'll email you the file when it's done.

You have reached a maximum limit of <strong>{limit}</strong> columns in the table. Remove at least <strong>1</strong> column to add or create another one.

Marco Perolini

Author Tools

Chat about Author