The Contentious Politics of Refugee and Migrant Protest and Solidarity Movements

Over the past two years, large-scale migratory movements to Europe have gained worldwide attention, and have prompted ever-greater desires to govern and control them. At the same time, we have seen the emergence of political struggles for rights to movement and demands for greater social justice, in both the global ‘north’ and ‘south’. Throughout the world, political mobilizations by refugees, irregularized migrants and solidarity activists have emerged, demanding and enacting the right to move and to stay, struggling for citizenship and human rights, and protesting the violence and deadliness of contemporary border regimes.

This collection brings together articles that explore political mobilizations in several countries and (border) regions, including Brazil, Mexico, the United States, Austria, Germany, Greece, Turkey and ‘the Mediterranean’. Many of these political mobilizations can be understood as transnational responses to processes of regionalization and the intensification of restrictive border regimes across the globe, and as illustrative of what might be referred to as a ‘new era of protest’.