Campaigns
Our speakers presenting during the PAPER series are from various backgrounds; many of them are activists, organisers, academics, authors, and workers. As such, all of them are involved - in some way or another - in anti-racist, decolonial initiatives, the fight for equity, and in the fight against injustice. They are fighting for their rights as workers, for their communities, and for change. Please get involved and support their campaigns, detailed below.
Protect this Black-led organisation fighting to maintain hold on its community centre
We highly encourage you to take a moment to sign the petition to keep The Village HQ CIC, black led-community centre in Lambeth currently under attack by the council, open. Not only does The Village HQ CIC have a rich history of innovative youth and community work, being a centre of Pan-African activism across the UK for over three decades, it is also crucial in supporting the increased needs of the community under the pandemic, as well as being a social asset for its future.
You can sign the petition here, and tweet about it using the hashtag #ItTakesAVillage.
Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB)
IWGB represents hundreds of cleaners, security guards and other support staff at Senate House, UCL and other sites across the University of London, campaigning against outsourcing, bullying and low pay. They need our active support and solidarity. They have recently launched a campaign calling for the closure of all non-essential buildings, hazard payment for those at the frontline and the end to zero hour contracts. You can sign it here, and tweet them.
They try to keep union membership fees low to be inclusive, so any donations towards supporting their members, running campaigns and reaching out to new people are extremely important. You can donate to IWGB here.
Audio Description Association
The Audio Description Association (ADA) works to raise the standard and profile of audio description nationwide, supporting audio describers and facilitating a quality service for blind and partially sighted people.
ADA Scotland
Audio description fills in the gaps for blind and visually impaired people without intruding on the dialogue. Significant sight loss affects 180,000 people in Scotland.
Audio Description Association (Scotland) has members who work in theatres across the country, describing performances and enhancing the enjoyment of some of these people.
We highly encourage you to take a moment to sign the petition to keep The Village HQ CIC, black led-community centre in Lambeth currently under attack by the council, open. Not only does The Village HQ CIC have a rich history of innovative youth and community work, being a centre of Pan-African activism across the UK for over three decades, it is also crucial in supporting the increased needs of the community under the pandemic, as well as being a social asset for its future.
You can sign the petition here, and tweet about it using the hashtag #ItTakesAVillage.
Independent Workers’ Union of Great Britain (IWGB)
IWGB represents hundreds of cleaners, security guards and other support staff at Senate House, UCL and other sites across the University of London, campaigning against outsourcing, bullying and low pay. They need our active support and solidarity. They have recently launched a campaign calling for the closure of all non-essential buildings, hazard payment for those at the frontline and the end to zero hour contracts. You can sign it here, and tweet them.
They try to keep union membership fees low to be inclusive, so any donations towards supporting their members, running campaigns and reaching out to new people are extremely important. You can donate to IWGB here.
Audio Description Association
The Audio Description Association (ADA) works to raise the standard and profile of audio description nationwide, supporting audio describers and facilitating a quality service for blind and partially sighted people.
ADA Scotland
Audio description fills in the gaps for blind and visually impaired people without intruding on the dialogue. Significant sight loss affects 180,000 people in Scotland.
Audio Description Association (Scotland) has members who work in theatres across the country, describing performances and enhancing the enjoyment of some of these people.
CoopQuilombo
We encourage you to donate to Julia Sauma’s fundraising project entitled CoopQuilombo.
“For over 200 years, Amazonian quilombo (maroon) families in the Trombetas River Basin (Oriximiná, Pará State, Brazil) - descended from Africans and Afro-descendants who found refuge from enslavement in the rainforest - have been fighting to maintain their communities against constant attacks from State and corporate, racial, and environmental violence.
As Francisco Hugo de Souza from the Jauary Community explains in a recent audio message:
“There are 1,750 quilombo families descended from those who escaped plantations in Belem to this region, in the Oriximina municipality, that have always resisted, always fought to defend life, defend territory, defend the river, defend the riches present in this forest.
Until today we live there, organising ourselves, fighting against the large-scale projects that exist in this region. Which is why we want everyone to help us, so that we can combat all of these problems in our communities, and also work to develop our communities without destroying the forest.
We live within the sights of a large plan for federal and state government projects, that will impact our region. Which is why we ask for help through Julia, through this campaign, so that we can receive financial support so we can mobilise, so we can fight these projects.”
This project supports their efforts to begin a seedling and reforestation programme, carpentry workshop and mini-market, with the aim of supporting sustainable community production, preventing indebtedness, and reducing families’ need to make the long, expensive, and dangerous journey by boat into town. We encourage you to donate whatever you can.
We encourage you to donate to Julia Sauma’s fundraising project entitled CoopQuilombo.
“For over 200 years, Amazonian quilombo (maroon) families in the Trombetas River Basin (Oriximiná, Pará State, Brazil) - descended from Africans and Afro-descendants who found refuge from enslavement in the rainforest - have been fighting to maintain their communities against constant attacks from State and corporate, racial, and environmental violence.
As Francisco Hugo de Souza from the Jauary Community explains in a recent audio message:
“There are 1,750 quilombo families descended from those who escaped plantations in Belem to this region, in the Oriximina municipality, that have always resisted, always fought to defend life, defend territory, defend the river, defend the riches present in this forest.
Until today we live there, organising ourselves, fighting against the large-scale projects that exist in this region. Which is why we want everyone to help us, so that we can combat all of these problems in our communities, and also work to develop our communities without destroying the forest.
We live within the sights of a large plan for federal and state government projects, that will impact our region. Which is why we ask for help through Julia, through this campaign, so that we can receive financial support so we can mobilise, so we can fight these projects.”
This project supports their efforts to begin a seedling and reforestation programme, carpentry workshop and mini-market, with the aim of supporting sustainable community production, preventing indebtedness, and reducing families’ need to make the long, expensive, and dangerous journey by boat into town. We encourage you to donate whatever you can.
Literature
Many of our speakers have published works concerned with the seminars’ topics. These works are examples of how we can integrate what was discussed in the seminars into our research practice. The literature included below are works promoted by the speakers.
Writing the Camp
Yousif M. Qasmiyeh
Selected as The Poetry Book Society’s Spring 2021 Recommendation, “Yousif M Qasmiyeh's Writing The Camp is an exceptional, essential collection drawn from the poet's experience of the Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon. The poetry moves beyond the observational into a philosophical meditation on the existential nature of place. Qasmiyeh asks "Where is time?", crossing footprints of Derrida, "To experience is to advance by navigating, to walk by traversing". Writing The Camp is a brave and beautiful work, one which will surely be of historical importance.”
‘Recentering the South in Studies of Migration’
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
(open-access)
This article introduces the 2020 Special Issue of Migration & Society. “It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Eurocentrism of migration studies requires a commitment to decentering global North knowledge. However, it is less clear whether this necessarily means “recentering the South.” Against this backdrop, this introduction starts by highlighting diverse ways that scholars, including the contributors to this special issue, have sought to redress Eurocentrism in migration studies: (1) examining the applicability of classical concepts and frameworks in the South; (2) filling blind spots by studying migration in the South and South-South migration; and (3) engaging critically with the geopolitics of knowledge production. The remainder of the introduction examines questions on decentering and recentering, different ways of conceptualizing the South, and—as a pressing concern with regard to knowledge production —the politics of citation. In so doing, the introduction critically delineates the contours of these debates, provides a frame for this volume, and sets out a number of key thematic and editorial priorities for Migration and Society moving forward.”
Yousif M. Qasmiyeh
Selected as The Poetry Book Society’s Spring 2021 Recommendation, “Yousif M Qasmiyeh's Writing The Camp is an exceptional, essential collection drawn from the poet's experience of the Baddawi refugee camp in Lebanon. The poetry moves beyond the observational into a philosophical meditation on the existential nature of place. Qasmiyeh asks "Where is time?", crossing footprints of Derrida, "To experience is to advance by navigating, to walk by traversing". Writing The Camp is a brave and beautiful work, one which will surely be of historical importance.”
‘Recentering the South in Studies of Migration’
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh
(open-access)
This article introduces the 2020 Special Issue of Migration & Society. “It has become increasingly mainstream to argue that redressing the Eurocentrism of migration studies requires a commitment to decentering global North knowledge. However, it is less clear whether this necessarily means “recentering the South.” Against this backdrop, this introduction starts by highlighting diverse ways that scholars, including the contributors to this special issue, have sought to redress Eurocentrism in migration studies: (1) examining the applicability of classical concepts and frameworks in the South; (2) filling blind spots by studying migration in the South and South-South migration; and (3) engaging critically with the geopolitics of knowledge production. The remainder of the introduction examines questions on decentering and recentering, different ways of conceptualizing the South, and—as a pressing concern with regard to knowledge production —the politics of citation. In so doing, the introduction critically delineates the contours of these debates, provides a frame for this volume, and sets out a number of key thematic and editorial priorities for Migration and Society moving forward.”
Refuge in a Moving World: tracing refugee and migrant journeys across disciplines
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (ed.)
(open-access)
“Refuge in a Moving World draws together more than thirty contributions from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice to discuss different ways of engaging with, and responding to, migration and displacement.
The volume combines critical reflections on the complexities of conceptualizing processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of these experiences in contemporary and historical settings from around the world. Through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies – including participatory research, poetic and spatial interventions, ethnography, theatre, discourse analysis and visual methods – the volume documents the complexities of refugees’ and migrants’ journeys. This includes a particular focus on how people inhabit and negotiate everyday life in cities, towns, camps and informal settlements across the Middle East and North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Europe.
A key dynamic documented throughout the book is the multiple ways that responses to displacement are enacted by people with personal or family experiences of (forced) migration. These people appear in many roles: researchers, writers and artists, teachers, solidarians, first responders, NGO practitioners, neighbours and/or friends. Through the application of historically and spatially sensitive, intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, the contributors explore the ways that different people – across axes of religion, sexuality, gender and age – experience and respond to their own situations and to those of other people, in the context of diverse power structures and structural inequalities on the local, national and international level.
Ultimately, Refuge in a Moving World argues that working collaboratively through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies has the potential to develop nuanced understandings of processes of migration and displacement, and, in turn, to encourage more sustainable modes of responding to our moving world.”
Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh (ed.)
(open-access)
“Refuge in a Moving World draws together more than thirty contributions from multiple disciplines and fields of research and practice to discuss different ways of engaging with, and responding to, migration and displacement.
The volume combines critical reflections on the complexities of conceptualizing processes and experiences of (forced) migration, with detailed analyses of these experiences in contemporary and historical settings from around the world. Through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies – including participatory research, poetic and spatial interventions, ethnography, theatre, discourse analysis and visual methods – the volume documents the complexities of refugees’ and migrants’ journeys. This includes a particular focus on how people inhabit and negotiate everyday life in cities, towns, camps and informal settlements across the Middle East and North Africa, Southern and Eastern Africa, and Europe.
A key dynamic documented throughout the book is the multiple ways that responses to displacement are enacted by people with personal or family experiences of (forced) migration. These people appear in many roles: researchers, writers and artists, teachers, solidarians, first responders, NGO practitioners, neighbours and/or friends. Through the application of historically and spatially sensitive, intersectional and interdisciplinary lenses, the contributors explore the ways that different people – across axes of religion, sexuality, gender and age – experience and respond to their own situations and to those of other people, in the context of diverse power structures and structural inequalities on the local, national and international level.
Ultimately, Refuge in a Moving World argues that working collaboratively through interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies has the potential to develop nuanced understandings of processes of migration and displacement, and, in turn, to encourage more sustainable modes of responding to our moving world.”