Racial Capitalism, Political Reproduction, and the Commons: Insights from Migrant Solidarity Politics in Glasgow

Abstract

AbstractThis paper foregrounds the centrality of reproductive politics in constituting the spaces of migrant activism. Addressing social reproductive issues as racial issues, it exposes how “premature death” and questions of survival shape migrants’ lives throughout the uneven geographies of racial capitalism. Drawing on the political experiences of the “No Evictions Network”—a migrant and activist‐led group campaigning for asylum seekers’ rights in Glasgow (Scotland)—the paper suggests the concept of “political reproduction”, grasping the interchange between care, trust, empowerment, political subjectivation, and the overcoming of barriers towards political action that take place within spaces of migrant activism. Building upon migrant voices and Black and Brown histories of organising, the paper explores the racialised, gendered, and classed character of reproductive activist labour in these spaces, evidencing the ways the notion of “political reproduction” breaks racialised and gendered constructions of political work.