Muslim Integration and the Hijabi Monologues Ireland

In 2012 and 2013, two productions of the Hijabi Monologues, an American theatre project featuring the stories of Muslim women, were staged in Ireland. This essay considers their relationship to state-sponsored and community-led interculturalism during the Celtic Tiger and post-Tiger years. Both productions centred on the act of storytelling and tended to downplay xenophobia, instead enacting the type of feel-good intercultural exchange that has dominated Irish and European integration efforts since the late 1990s. At the same time, the 2013 production, on which the essay focuses, employed coalition-building strategies borrowed from the field of migrant activism, thereby ensuring Muslim involvement throughout the production process. The Hijabi Monologues Ireland furnishes a snapshot of a transitional moment in Irish intercultural programming when the state-funded projects of the Celtic Tiger era were giving way to migrant-led initiatives. By examining the production's artistic process, community participation, and funding streams, the essay assesses its successes and shortcomings in addressing the complex challenges of Muslim integration.

New migrant activism: Frame alignment and future protest participation

New migrant movements increasingly rely on unconventional forms of protest, which they strategically frame in rational terms, rather than as ‘acts of desperation’ that dominate public representations. This article demonstrates this empirically through a prototypical case of new migrant activism, employing discourse analysis to explore the collective framing of a hunger strike involving irregular migrants in Greece, which was, however, contested by other protest users. Drawing on rare and pertinent data collected through face-to-face interviews with hunger strikers, we find that the strategic or rationalist framing of the hunger strike, promoted by its leaders, was largely shared with individual protesters at the basis of the mobilisation, contrary to the publicly proliferated affective frames. Using quantitative methods, we show, for the first time, that the degree of frame alignment is not only important for the legitimacy of a movement but is also a significant predictor of future remobilisation in radical types of protest activity.

Cosmopolitanism in US Sanctuary Cities: Dreamers Claiming Urban Citizenship

Sanctuary cities are on the rise and undocumented migrant activism is growing in both the US and Europe. In this context, it seems appropriate to revisit the concept of sanctuaryin its relation to undocumented activism. Based on literature in the field and on ethnographic observation, this chapter explores the way US sanctuary policies foster new forms of urban citizenship to undocumented migrants who rely on the city for their practices, introducing the concept of cosmopolitanism to discuss their “acts of citizenship.”

Take back the city: Building an interracial class coalition to fight for ‘Homes for All’

This article draws on empirical data collected through in-depth interviews conducted with Irish and migrant activists from the Take Back the City housing coalition to incite the debate about the potential of interracial class coalitions and to point out the challenges of migrant activism in Ireland. Take Back the City was a movement from below, which through the praxis aimed to challenge common sense with good sense. It questioned the commodification of housing in Ireland by reframing the housing crisis as a result of political and economic decisions, as well as in its strategy of occupying empty buildings. Claiming Homes For All, activists noticed that this slogan was not all-encompassing and as such was insufficient to help recognise that it also referred to those who came to Ireland to study, work or seek asylum. As the hegemonic narrative understands the world through concepts such as the nation-state, borders and citizenship, it automatically excludes non-nationals as the people, the subject of rights within a nation-state. This article locates Take Back the City experience within the discussion on race and class dynamics addressed by anti-racist and anti-capitalist scholars and activists.

Countering the Asylum Paradox Through Strategic Humanitarianism: Evidence from Safe Passage Activism in Germany

This paper inquires the moral and political ambivalences of migrant support located between contentious politics and humanitarian aid. Comparing Save Me and Seebrücke, two cases of pro-migrant activism in Germany claiming the safe passage of migrants to Europe, we develop the notion of ‘strategic humanitarianism’, a hybrid form of migrant support, in which actors combine the strategic employment of predominantly depoliticizing, narrow and humanitarian framing with a contentious repertoire of action. It entails deliberately sacrificing a ‘deep’ politicization of fundamental critique against contemporary migration regimes in order to achieve a ‘wide’ politicization and broad consensus for progressive social change. Furthermore, we carve out how distinct political contexts, in this case the issue salience and polarization of migration, influence the dynamics of mobilization and the configuration of humanitarianism and contentious politics. Despite a similar focus, thus, the ‘strategic humanitarianism’ of Save Me has developed a less contentious and disobedient character than Seebrücke.

Fighting Fascist Spain

Fighting Fascist Spain pieces together the story of Spanish immigrants in the United States in their fight against fascism, as reflected in the periodical España Libre and the grassroots activism of the organization that sustained that publication, the Sociedades Hispanas Confederadas, or the Confederadas. Although Espana Libre was run by Spanish immigrants and exiles and published in Brooklyn and New York City, the organization had a clear transnational consciousness: old migrants and new exiles coalesced in overlapping communities across the United States that were linked to similar antifascist networks in other countries. Fighting Fascist Spain identifies the web of anarchist, anarcho-syndicalist, and socialist connections that facilitated the political engagement of local activists and organizations and enlarged the global reach of the Confederadas during the dictatorship of Francisco Franco (1939–1975) and until democratic elections were held again in Spain (1977). Using extensive and previously ignored literary, visual, and archival sources, the manuscript explores anarchist literature and antifascist humor. The broad objective of Fighting Fascist Spain is not merely to recover evidence of migrant activism and literature but to articulate how workers’ culture and politics shaped their antifascism.

Migrant Diplomacies: Rethinking Diplomacy Beyond State-Centric Perspectives. A Civic Bi-Nationality Experience from North America

There is a pressing need to extend our thinking about diplomacy beyond state-centric perspectives, as in the name of sovereignty and national interests, people on move are confronting virtual, symbolic and/or material walls and frames of policies inhibiting their free movement. My point of departure is to explore migrant activism and global politics through the transformation of diplomacy in a globalised world. Developing an interdisciplinary dialogue between new diplomacy and sociology, I evidence the emergence of global sociopolitical formations created through civic bi-nationality organisations. Focusing on the agent in interaction with structures, I present a theoretical framework and strategy for analysing the practices of migrant diplomacies as an expression of contemporary politics. A case study from North America regarding returned families in Mexico City provides evidence of how these alternative diplomacies are operating.