RT Article
T1 The Noborder Movement: Interpersonal Struggle with Political Ideals
JF Social Inclusion
VO 5
IS 3
SP 49
OP 57
A1 Gauditz, Leslie
LA English
PB Cogitatio Press
YR 2017
UL https://ixtheo.de/Record/1014803403
AB Over the last decade, self-organized refugee protests in Europe have increased. One strand of activism in Europe, noborder, involves a transnational network of people who are heterogeneous with regards to legal status, race, or individual history of migration, but who share decolonial, anti-capitalist ideals that criticize the nation-state. Noborder activists embrace prefigurative strategies, which means enacting political ideals in their everyday life. This is why this article asks: How do noborder activists try to meet their political ideals in their everyday practices, and what effects do these intentions entail? Noborder practices take place at the intersection of self-organization as a reference to migrants’ legal status or identity, on the one hand, and self-organization as anti-hierarchical forms of anarchist-autonomous organization, on the other. On the basis of empirical findings of a multi-sited ethnography in Germany and Greece, this article conceptualizes that noborder creates a unique space for activists to meet in which people try to work productively through conflicts they see as being produced by a global system of inequalities. This demanding endeavor involves social pressure to self-reflect and to transform interpersonal relationships. Broader society could learn from such experiences to build more inclusive, heterogeneous communities.
K1 Activism
K1 Asylum
K1 everyday politics
K1 noborder
K1 prefiguration
K1 Protest
K1 refugee protest
K1 self-organization
K1 Social Movements
DO 10.17645/si.v5i3.968