We Are Still Here and Staying! Refugee-Led Mobilizations and Their Struggles for Rights in Germany

Abstract

The German chapter by Susi Meret and Walther Diener discusses collective mobilizations and resistance movements started by non-status refugees in Germany protesting stricter asylum and migration laws, the lack of basic freedoms and rights. The emergence and activities of these groups demonstrate the rise of politicization where refugees with(out) status are key actors building awareness about their marginalization and rightlessness. Germany is in this sense paradigmatic: Refugee-led mobilizations (e.g. Lampedusa in Hamburg, the Berlin Refugee Strike Movement) have taken place in several major cities particularly in 2012–2015. We argue that contemporary refugee struggles feature significant practices of political subjectivation, self-organization and empowerment that display similarities across Germany. This chapter focuses on the specific urban (activist) contexts of Hamburg and Berlin and on the ways mobilization strategies have been “transformed” by and with self-organized refugees.