Tara Fiorito

Participatory (co-creation) theatre project with multiple stakeholders; old and new refugees, engaged scholars and NGO’s.

In this theatrical multimedia show, we imagine; what if the Netherlands would be flooded and we would all have to flee? What do you take with you and what do you leave behind? How do you become a “deserving” migrant? Which Dutch or European values will become an obstacle? How to deal with border authorities, asylum procedures and adapting to a new culture/society? In the theatrical mockumentary/crash course, refugees help prepare for such a disaster and function as the experts.

Collaborative project with theatergroup SPACE, Vluchtelingen Ambassadeurs en Ongekend Bijzonder

Links:
https://www.spaceexplorers.nl/nl/project/pilot-remember-amsterdam-2/
https://ongekendbijzonder.nl/co-creatie/remember-amsterdam-crash-course-refugee/

Based on long-term ethnographic research on undocumented youth organizing in Los Angeles (2011-2018), this paper argues that the undocumented students movement plays a profound role in offering undocumented youths alternative, intersectional discourses that actively seek to resist, reject and recast the hateful stigmatizing, dehumanizing and demonizing discourses they encounter in everyday discourse, politics and (social) media.

The paper points towards the importance of interspaces, or daring spaces, located both in real and virtual space, for the development, distribution and enactment of alternative discourses and political actions that purposefully counter everyday hateful tropes and include and celebrate the existence and intersectionality of immigrant-, poor-, queer-, trans-, women- and people of color identities.

It shows that undocumented youths are able to overcome the shame, fear and stigma of being undocumented, come out of the shadows as “undocumented and unafraid” and engage in high risk (civil disobedience) actions to fight for the advancement of marginalized and stigmatized groups and -identities through the collaborative engagement of the undocumented students movement and institutions and theories of higher education.

The article thus explores how undocumented and immigrant students utilize, interact and engage with institutions of higher education in their political, discursive, social, cultural transformation efforts and projects that are both narrative, as well as visual, personal and collective. As such, it addresses the role of higher education in providing and facilitating on-campus and off-campus spaces and resources for the development of these alternative, intersectional discourses and actions. Institutions of higher education and academic theories contribute to and aid undocumented students in the process of coming out of the shadows as undocumented and unafraid and transforming shame into pride and fear into anger and action.

Through the collaborative relationship of engagement between the undocumented students movement and higher education, undocumented students are able to go through a collective process of personal transformation, in which their shared subjectivities are reconstituted by the internalization of emotionally-intensive practices and discourses of empowerment.

Based on longitudinal ethnographic research, this article explores what the concepts of collective identity and subjectivity contribute in the case of the undocumented youth movement in Los Angeles. I show that while the collective identity of the Dreamers has been used to organize undocumented youth from different backgrounds and regions into a recognizable collective actor successfully engaged in political action, nowadays the Dreamer identity is a matter of contention among undocumented youth. I show that the basis of subjective sharing and belonging is now less derived from the collective identity of the Dreamer and more from the shared subjectivities of undocumented youths, constituted by embodied experiences of exclusion, stigmatization, and empowerment. I thus argue for a stronger engagement with the concept of subjectivity in social movement research, as it offers a greater understanding of the profound effects of embodied and affective experiences of negative discursive positioning, trauma, emancipation, and healing.

Building upon intensive ethnographic research on the undocumented youth movement in Los Angeles, this paper investigates the backstage work done by the leaders and activists within a movement to create cohesive and disciplined frontstage performances. These backstage techniques and strategies are important to examine because frontstage unity is not natural or automatic. As most campaigns are made up of heterogeneous individuals, organizations and groups, frontstage coherence is something that needs to be worked upon. We show that this essential backstage work consists of 1) training activists to become disciplined frontstage performers; 2) converging the feelings of activists through emotionally intensive disciplinary techniques; and 3) managing differences and conflicts in the free spaces of the movement. This paper thus aims to encourage scholars to look under the hood of public protests and give greater weight to studying the backstage work needed to produce strong and powerful voices.