Solidarity Among People on the Move: Migrants and Refugees as a Key Feature of Border Abolitionism

Abstract

This article reflects on the concept of solidarity in migration and border studies based on an analysis of what happens in the underground of illegalized migration. Through a discussion of three ethnographic case studies, it shows that one of the main features of solidarity along migration routes is not humanitarian or political relationships but mutual support and care. The first case study concerns solidarity practices in the communities of sub-Saharan migrants stranded in Tunisia along the central Mediterranean route toward Europe. The second is about the unconventional solidarity practices of undocumented people on the margins of the asylum frameworks in Belgium. The third deals with digital infrastructures of information sharing used by Moroccan border crossers to enter the European Union via Turkey and the Western Balkan Route. The article argues that the forms of grassroots solidarity among people on the move represent an affirmative relation to border abolitionism. These solidarity campaigns indeed prompt us to think about alternatives to the actually existing bordered world.