Migrant Activism: Between Public Protest and Everyday Engagement

• In Event: Migrant Integration: democratic practices

Abstract

This paper brings together findings from two research projects. The first one is MOBILISE – an international project in which we ask: ‘Why in the situations of crisis, some people protest while others cross borders?’. In the project, we collect panel survey data, organise focus groups and conduct interviews in Poland, Ukraine, Morocco and Argentina and with individuals from these countries living in the UK, Germany and Spain. Here I use some of the findings from the interviews and focus groups with Polish migrants in Berlin, including a focus group with Polish protesters in the city.

The second research project, ‘Visualising the Invisible’, uses long-term, multi-sited ethnography and visual ethnography to explore the activism of migrants for causes other than those of immediate importance to their own community. In the project, I research migrant activists not engaged in ‘community organisations’, such as parishes, Saturday schools or migrant NGOs, but instead reach out to people engaged in causes such as promoting veganism and environmental awareness or alternative economies. I also focus on what could be called ‘everyday activism’ (Goldstein 2017) and trace instances of individual activism, which happens outside of any formal or informal organisations.

In this paper, I will combine findings from the two projects with insights I gained from attending Polish protests in Berlin. I will also use some of the video footage from my new ethnographic documentary about a co-operative run by Polish migrants in Manchester.

Author

• Piotr Goldstein, ZOiS Berlin