Loomio
Tue 19 Sep 2017 10:35AM

Solidarity as Commons - Refugees and Migrants: Meet your group

G

Gaelle Mon 9 Oct 2017 11:15AM

Dear all,

Based on the information you submitted, you’ll be part of the workshop on Solidarity with migrants and refugees.

Context of the workshop

The issue of solidarity with migrants and refugees is not one of the issues classically discussed as commons. However, in the current situation in Europe, where solidarity with migrants and refugees is either not ensured by states and cities, or, in most cases, actively prevented or opposed, it makes a lot of sense to try to think about it as a commons and as the result of the action of commoners.

This is all the more so relevant that all over Europe, citizens are developing initiatives to counter, mitigate or level governments, municipalities or police actions – in several countries mapping of this action reveal the scale of it. If such initiatives have no cannot and should not replace proper policies and actions led by the State and cities in this domain, they are essential right now: for what they bring to people and for what they represent in Europe, they need to be supported and reinforced.

Considering solidarity as a ressource that citizens can generate collectively provide an interesting frame to reflect upon these actions. It points several key issues that will be discussed during the workshop, such as:
- the capacity of citizens to act collectively and to organize and sustain their action under heavy pressures (political, from the police, from the courts of justice, due to the intensity of human needs, due to the lack of means, the weather conditions, etc.),
- the matter of the interactions of groups of self organized citizens with local or national institutions,
- the way we can strengthen communities by sharing knowledge, tactics, tools, strategies, contacts, etc. and possibly develop convergence or common actions in some cases.

We are now 2 weeks ahead of the workshop. While a few more people from Madrid or other places in Europe will still join us for this workshop, we’d like to start the conversation going, before the assembly, so that we work effectively once we are all together in Madrid and establish a good group dynamic.

Next steps to take

We can have this discussion by email or through loomio: https://www.loomio.org/d/TAx08crK/solidarity-as-commons-refugees-and-migrants-meet-your-group (let’s try to find a consensus on what way seems the easiest and more adapted to you, personally I can adapt).

To start the conversation you can start telling us what question or specific aspect you'd to explore in relation to our theme.

For you info, here’s a brief overview of the Methodology of the Workshops in Madrid. The format is quite different than the last ECA in Brussels. Keep in mind the workshops run in parallel, so we will be focused on our theme throughout. The Workshop will be facilitated and broken up into blocks:
Block 1: Introductions and Aims – We recap the online conversation, introduce our work, and try to locate the objectives of this work. Do we have (a) common objective(s)? What?
Block 2: Difficulties and Strategies to Overcome Them – In our work, we probably face difficulties in achieving these objectives and growing and strengthening our commons. What are they? How could we work together to overcome them? We will also see what concrete project or tool we could begin to create together that addresses this.
Block 3: Putting it into practice – Reflecting on what we discussed so far, we continue to develop what we can do, share, or create concretely in this group to help develop commons policy in this area
Block 4: Getting together– How do all the different questions look across the commons movement, in this and other thematic areas? We will come together, share our results, and look for commonalities between different initiatives, groups and themes.
Looking forward to hearing from you!

Gaelle

OK

Oliver Kalleinen Mon 9 Oct 2017 12:30PM

Hi and thanks for bringing this thread to life. I am not in this work-group, just wanted to point out that it would be good in terms of transparency and inclusiveness to keep the discussion in Loomio as much as possible.

PA

Panayotis Antoniadis Sun 15 Oct 2017 3:56PM

Hi all, I was recently in an interesting related workshop in Lesvos: http://www.contested-borderscapes.net/abstracts/

MD

Mo Diener Tue 17 Oct 2017 7:58AM

Great, looking forward