The roots of uprooting: migrant oral history and internationalist solidarity

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores a transnational oral history project on migrant justice which I developed in collaboration with refugee organizers in Greece and students in my course ‘Borders and Migration’ at the University of Utah. In the project, US-based and Greece-based im/migrant communities exchange oral histories with each other on their struggles and experiences. I argue that this exchange shed light on avenues for building internationalist solidarity among migrant justice movements worldwide. The project made visible some common ‘roots of uprooting,’ namely the ways in which structures of capitalism and imperialism have uprooted disparate peoples from their homelands. I thus argue that freedom of movement and freedom from uprooting emerge as twin struggles in these oral histories. I then explore the ways that both sides of the exchange underscored that community need not be defined by citizenship papers or lack thereof, by (militarized) national borders, or by people’s particular ethnic identity. Rather, participants spoke to each other of steadfastly building strong, meaningful communities based on mutual aid despite their presence being deemed illegal or otherwise illegitimate. These included a direct-action squat by refugees of a vacant hotel in Athens as well as other forms of community building by DACAmented youth on the project’s US side. I ultimately argue that these acts help light the way to a world not based on profit and its tendency to displace people, but rather based on sharing resources in solidarity. The latter roots people together instead of uprooting them from homes and from one another.