How do migrants organise, mobilise, and build solidarity in the Global South? As ordinary people move, they organise themselves, create channels of solidarity and extend support to each other and to other members of the working and broader subaltern classes. These forms of organising and solidarity take both formal and informal forms and are both visible and not-so-visible. Understanding these dynamics is very important given the fact that South-South migration accounts for the dominant stock of migration and increasingly is becoming a significant factor in the economic and social development of many developing countries. While xenophobia and othering are regular features of migrant-local encounters, the extent to which its opposite - solidarity - occurs because of workplace and community activism of migrants, has received far less attention. How migrants organise themselves and how they relate to locals of similar social standing is important for a nuanced understanding of migrant experiences in the Global South.
This one-day online forum, organised by MIDEQ’s thematic area on political mobilisation and transnational solidarity building, in collaboration with the International Trade Union Confederation Africa (ITUC-Africa) is aimed at sharing lessons, building connections, and fostering solidarity across national, regional, and continental boundaries.
It brings together migrants, migrants’ groups, activists, CSOs, trade unions, religious organisations, and researchers who are working to advance the issues faced by migrants as part of larger working and subaltern classes who have to struggle for access to housing, healthcare, education, employment and against discrimination.