Migration and Mobile Rights

Activism, Racial Justice, and Human Rights from Below

Marco Perolini

• Publisher: Bristol University Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN:
  9781529243581
• Edition: 1
• Subtopic: Human Rights

Migrant activism is key in today's world, where countries in the Global North employ border regimes to reinforce racial hierarchies, limit freedom of movement, and exploit migrant labour. But how do migrant-led movements engage with human rights - do they see them as limited tools, or as frameworks that can be reimagined in the fight for border justice?

In this compelling study, Perolini critically examines the various ways migrants challenge these border regimes, and highlights the transformative potential of constructing human rights from below, moving beyond the state and legal norms.

Drawing on rich ethnographic research in Berlin, the book offers a fresh and provocative perspective on the intersections of migrant activism, human rights, and racial and border justice

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• Series Editors’ Preface
• List of Figures
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1 Human Rights: For Whom and By Whom? Approaches to Human Rights in Mobility Struggles
• 2 Racism, Migration, and Collective Resistance in Germany
• 3 Change Beyond the State? Mobility Struggles, Rights Claiming, and the State
• 4 ‘We Are All Refugees’: Mobility Struggles and Their Ambiguous Approach to Legal Norms
• 5 Non-Reformist Reforms, Border Abolitionism, and Mobile Rights
• 6 Mobility Struggles in Berlin 2.0
• Conclusion
• Postscript: My Freedom of Movement
• List of Organizations and Interviewees
• Notes
• References
• Index