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

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.

Experiences and Perceived Barriers of Asylum Seekers and People with Refugee Backgrounds in Accessing Healthcare Services in Romania

“…On the one hand, they participate actively and are involved in various social activities using strategies to help asylum seekers and people with refugee backgrounds cope, recognise citizenship, and obtain their social rights. On the other hand, survival and coping strategies are linked to resources (social networks, work, and payments for basic needs) [ 86 , 87 ]. As the in-depth interviews showed, in Romania, these resources, many times, are scarce or dependent on legislation that is convoluted and often changing and, more often than that, summarily implemented.…”

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

“…As I emphasized in the previous section, while similar divisions to those evoked by Rita emerged also in the context of O‐Platz, the activists' collective memories of the protest camp did not embed them. Moreover, while alliances among groups of activists who held different legal statuses emerged in 2018 (Perolini, 2022), activists tended to emphasize only the fragmentation marking their mobilization. For example, Anne, a German activist who engaged with a grassroots refugee organization, told me in an interview:

Now we are in defence mode.

…”

“…Migrants who mobilized with grassroots organizations often had precarious legal status. However, they identified themselves as refugees to contest classification systems and restrictive legal notions (Perolini, 2022). In this article, I use the term "refugee/s" to present my ethnographic materials as activists identified themselves as refugees.…”

“…How to cite this article: Perolini, M. (2022). We don't remember the O-Platz protest camp for the sake of it.…”

Territoriality and Status in Human Rights Litigation: The Case of Israel/Palestine

“…One prominent example can be found in indigenous struggles in which petitioners and their lawyers wish to present an alternative narrative to that of the state, and are therefore reluctant to use citizenship as grounds for claiming rights (Yashar 2005). Another example is the litigation surrounding the rights of incoming refugees, in which arguing that individuals should enjoy certain protections when they reach dry land may imply consent to the legal framework that does not grant such protections to those arrested at sea (Nicholls 2014;Perolini 2022).…”