Our contribution to Nordic Migration Research Conference in Oslo 2016

In this year’s NMR-conference we had a workshop titled The right to have rights and irregular migration. I also for the second time arranged a workshop in collaboration with Erica Righard on Artsbased migration research, much appreciated. Ericas work with a Serbian/Swedish theatre group provide new opportunities to understand mobility in the contemporary world.

For my own part I presented the text A solidaric take on action. Solidarity as a foundational principle for political action – struggles for the right to asylum in the contemporary world, based on readings this summer. Any comments on the idea, or potential interesting “hooks” are most welcome to this post (which is the abstract only, the paper draft is still with me). Anna Lundberg, Global political studies, Malmö University

 

The essay attempts to contribute to a discussion about how solidarity can serve as a principle for action in transnational spheres, through discussing the asylum rights movement and the particular example of the ‘Tent camp against deportation’ in the city of Malmö. The aim is twofold. First, I want to highlight political work by irregularised migrants as instances of solidarity, so called worldly activities that are based on the principle of solidarity and carry this principle within. Second, this essay aims to develop an understanding of Arendt’s idea of solidarity as a foundation for collective action that emerges, and may be understood, in initiatives by irregularised migrants. The ability to act meaningfully in a position of deportability, on the basis of solidarity, tells us something about struggles over the world, worldliness as Arendt terms it. Through examples from the tent-camp we can notice how struggles play out in the everyday, and how activities are ‘world-facing’ rather than unworldly; public rather than private, diverse rather than narrow-minded, transnational rather than national, and reducing burdens for people to take part in the governance of the world. Here, grains may be found to a world where those who lack citizenship or for other reasons are excluded from spheres where their opinions are significant, may also appear as political subjects. In relation to the contested theoretical discussion about the novelty and unpredictability of political acts or statements, the tent camp action and similar initiatives indeed are unpredictable and simultaneously an expression of visions of a new world based on the principle of solidarity.