Don’t Mourn, Organize & Stand Together as Scholars of Migration

This is a call for migration scholars to organize a Migration Scholars’ Global Solidarity and Resistance Network. This network will help us to take two interrelated kinds of action: (1) publicly stand with migrants and refugees in the face of escalating attacks and; (2) support each other in the face of increasing attacks in many countries on scholars and scholarship that defends freedom of movement and settlement. Increasingly and around the world, migrants are being defined as invaders, unwanted, a drain on national wealth, and criminals. Migration scholars in many countries are being silenced when we speak out against anti-immigrant policies and their justifications including racism, continuing colonialist and nationalist narratives, deportations, militarization, and protecting borders rather than human lives. In a number of countries, migration scholars are facing attacks on our right and ability to teach and research about the cause, dynamics, and necessities of human migration.

Now is the time to collectively develop a global assessment of the situation and respond collectively. We must state the actual truths about migration in our classrooms, presentations, publications, media outlets, websites, and in all our professional organizations and capacities: Migration is a social good. Migrants and refugees build countries, make cities and produce vital goods and services. And migrants and refugees share the dreams of all people who aspire to a decent life. 

Right now, we are at a crossroads. We are seeing politicians emboldened to attack academic freedom and the basic freedoms of speech, assembly, and protest, with a special focus on university campuses. We are also seeing university leaderships choose the repression of protest and compliance with new anti-migrant policies, including the arrest and deportation of students. In the US, we are seeing the cancelation of visas, and the arrest and deportation of students, including people with permanent residence. We are committed to defending our students, our colleagues, and our fundamental liberties against these brazen attacks.

We believe, as scholars of migration, that we have an obligation to migrants and to the world at large to speak out against the dehumanization of all those who flee danger, desert intolerable conditions, or simply seek to make better lives for themselves and their loved ones, without regard for the borders and other barriers to their freedom of movement.  We are committed to joining migrants' struggles to make a more humane world for all.  We are also committed to a migration scholarship that develops and communicates the ways in which migrants are part of our collective struggles to build a better world.

In the face of these attacks on the right to have rights and the right to life, we the undersigned need to continue and strengthen our efforts to build solidarity, organization, resistance, and social movements for social and economic justice. This Migration Scholars’ Global Solidarity and Resistance Network will work together to take following actions:

Don’t Mourn, Organize: From our geographical region and research, we will join in building a globe-spanning network of migration scholars who pledge to support migrants and refugees, advocate for equal rights for all, and stand up against deportation, terror campaigns, and the prosecution of those who speak out against injustice. We will build this network of support with our voices, scholarship, and donations; this network will stand with migrants and migrant organizations in their struggles.

Resist: Where and whenever possible, we pledge and will implement non-compliance with deportations and the sanctioning and expulsion of faculty, students, and staff at our universities, in our classrooms, and in our neighborhoods. If possible, we will include this pledge in our syllabi, websites, social media, publications, and presentations. We recognize and support those faculty who cannot openly resist or they will immediately lose their jobs. Those who have a voice must use it now to advocate within their colleges and universities to take collective stand and to fulfill the pledge as individual scholars.

 Build Solidarity:  Use this Network to build solidarity by circulating and publicizing this call to organize and resist. As migration scholars we must build public opinion for the humanity of all, communicate, and  share scholarship that stands with migrants and refugees and highlight the unity possible between migrants and non-migrants in struggles for social and economic justice.

 Build Social Movements:  There are multiple social movements for justice and equity. But many are disunited and discouraged.  Our Global Migrant Scholars Solidarity and Resistance Network will contribute to social movements, joining migrants and non-migrants in struggles against deportation and surveillance, and make it clear that we struggle for access to safe refuge, housing, employment, health care, education, equal opportunity and social services for all.

Founders

Nina Glick Schiller (USA)

Bela Feldman Bianco (Brazil

Initiators (in alphabetical order)

Leo Chavez (USA)

Leticia Calderon Chelius (Mexico)

Nicholas De Genova (USA)

Raul Delgado-Wise (Mexico)

Eduardo Domenech (Argentina)

Thomas Faist (Germany)

Pauline Gardner-Barber (Canada)

Tricia Redeker Hepner (USA)

Gioconda Herrera (Ecuador)

Shahram Khosravi (Sweden)

 Audrey Macklin (Canada)

Nasar Meer (UK)

Sando Mezzadra (Italy)

Carole McGranahan (USA)

Fiona Murphy (Ireland)

Helion Povoa Neto (Brazil)

Ramona Perez (USA)

Gustavo Lins Ribeiro (Brazil)

Liliana Rivera (Mexico)

Noel Salazar (Belgium)

John Shields (Canada)

Anna Triandafyllidou (Canada)

Steven Vertovec (Germany)

Alisse Waterston (USA)

Nira Yuval-Davis (UK)