Insurgent mobility

Søren Brøndum Christensen – Essay for Urban Infrastructures “Insurgent Mobility”. Dozentin Dr. Christine Hentchel.
Contact: brochris@cms.hu-berlin.de or schr08@student.aau.dk.
Insurgent mobility
As agreed, I arrive at the camp at around 4.30 p.m. I go to the info spot where a German guy in his
early twenties tells me to go to the cooking tent. It is dark, windy and deserted at Oranienplatz and
the last days of snow have left the place rather muddy. As I enter the tent I’m greeted by an
amazing diversity of culture and age, warmth, the smell of exotic food and the loud sound of
dubstep coming from a boomblaster in the corner. After talking to the resident chef for a little while
I begin doing the dishes, feeling awkwardly out of place and welcome at the same time.
This was my first and so far only encounter with the protesting refugees1
at Oranienplatz, Berlin.
Out of curiosity I visited the camp and agreed to come around and help out for a couple of hours.
The protests were kick started in a refugee camp near Stuttgart, where an asylum seeker, apparently
due to the hopelessness of his life situation (Karawane 2012), committed suicide. From there the
situation evolved. Fellow refugees from the same camp went on a hunger strike in March 2012, the
protests spread to other camps as well, and it was decided to make a mark by going on a 600
kilometers long protest march from Würzburg to Berlin, where activists had raised a provisional
tent camp at Oranienplatz. Furthermore, a hunger strike has been held in front of Brandenburger
Tor, and the protests have also spread to other cities in Germany and Europe (Refugee Camp
Vienna 2012). The camp at Oranienplatz, the hunger strike at Brandenburger Tor and the protest
march becomes infrastructures, mediating the voices of the asylum peripheries. This challenges the
spatial divide between protesters and citizens, and by appropriating the city’s soil a claim (…) for
the right to reside with dignity, security and mobility (Holston 2009:248) is formulated.
The insurgency
In the following, and mainly building on Holston’s notion of insurgent citizenship (Holston 2009), I
will argue that this protest can be understood as a form of insurgent mobility, leading to a claim for
equal rights in line with (other) citizens. By applying the former notion, Holston captures the
movement towards a claim for citizenship being articulated and fought by the marginalized and
peripheral groups in the Brazilian cities. This happened somewhat autonomously in the so-called
autoconstructed peripheries, where the emergence of new squatted neighbourhoods lead to an
1 My impression is that the movement contains both refugees and asylum seekers, and therefore I choose to use both
terms loosely.

alternative public sphere, grassroots movements, articulation of rights and on the basis of this, a
new understanding of rights. Furthermore came also demands for inclusion in the infrastructures,
the legal city, properties and services (Holston 2009:259). In the example from Brazil the use of
violence was a part of the motion, but as I understand the concept insurgent citizenship, it does not
necessarily have to be about a violent rebellion, but has more to do with the autonomous and
alternative craving of acceptance and right to the city, and via this – right to citizenship.
However, in the case discussed by Holston we are dealing with a group who, despite its
marginalization, already hold a Brazilian passport and are legally part of the nation, though not
being treated equal to other citizens. In the case of the refugees the insurgency is being performed
by a group who are not part of the nation state and, by law, are not allowed to move freely. From
having to reside in what can be conceived as non-places, the protesters have taken to the streets to
form their claims, and publicize themselves towards others in the urban space, in an attempt to gain
recognition and create awareness. By doing this, they raise questions concerning the right to the city
and most importantly the right to rights and the right to freedom of movement. Regarding the latter,
the notion of insurgent mobility physically came in to play when the protesters marched from
Würzburg to Berlin and thereby violating §56 of the Asylum Procedure Act, also known as
Residenzpflicht (Globaleyesprod 2012). This paragraph state asylum seekers are not allowed to
travel beyond a 40 kilometer limit zone (Karawane 2012). The articulation and performance of their
claims then, is perhaps better understood as insurgent mobility, since the movement from the
refugee camp to the urban square is at the same time a demand as well as a method. In other words,
and as I will attempt to show, this can both be considered social and physical mobility, performed
quite literately step by step.
An autonomous political space within the nation state?
The squatting of neighbourhoods in Brazil was what led to demands for equal rights, and to some
extend this also seems to be the case of the occupying protesters at Oranienplatz. The construction
of an autonomous base emerges as a site which interrupts the sovereignty of the nation state and
common assumptions about the capabilities of refugees. As mentioned, the refugee camps often
appear as non-places situated away from the public sphere, making it difficult for the inhabitants to
be in consideration of the greater society. Furthermore, the refugees and asylum seekers commonly
stand out as being noncitizens excluded from the possibility of political action. According to Dan

Bousfield (2005), (…) the possibility for agency from the site of the excluded seems remote if not
impossible (Bousfield 2005:2), but the actions of the refugees prove this site as being very political
rather than a space of bare life. It was from the non-places the decision was made to go on a march
and occupy public space, turning it into an autonomous site bringing the refuges into the political
field as agents. The urban squares, in this light, become spaces of the creation of and battles for
citizenship, and also places where inequalities appear in your face (Holston 2009:263), demanding
some sort of reaction.
Not only has there been established a camp, but also an International Refugee Tribunal against the
Federal Republic of Germany (Refugee Tribunal 2013), which further underlines the insurgency
and autonomy of the network. In this tribunal the German government is charged for being (…)
responsible for the daily generation of reasons for people to leave their lands as refugees, for the
killing at the outer borders of Europe, and for the psychological and physical suffering, that
refugees and migrants experience in their daily life here in Germany (Refugee Tribunal 2013). This
presents the protesters as being political subjects creating demands and, as we see, accusations and
a call for changes that would deeply alter the configuration of included and excluded and the realm
of the political (Bousfield 2005:9).
Several other requests are being formulated from the tents at Oranienplatz. Among them appeals for
German citizenship for children born in the camps, work permit, access to learning the German
language, right to choose the location of settlement, abolition of the 40-kilometerlimit of travelling
and also entitlement to receiving residents permit in Germany (Karawane 2012). In order to achieve
this, or at least in the first place demand it, they are attempting to work politically by constructing
infrastructures such as; a financial workgroup, logistics workgroup, communication workgroup,
documentation work group and a media workgroup. This indicates more than simply a call for
better treatment and can be read as a demand for the allowance to get the chance to climb the social
ladder in society by being given rights. Children being able to be part of society from day one and
the allowance to learn German, clearly indicate the desires of the refugees and asylum seekers to be
part of the nation state infrastructures which allow one to participate in society, and thereby live a
more sustainable life. This, as I argue, they are attempting to achieve by performing insurgent
mobility, including a tightrope on the edge of what is legal and illegal. Part of their tactics was the
march which clearly violated German law, but the creation of a shared political space cannot in any
way be illegal, no matter how autonomous it might be. In this light the insurgent mobility can be

understood as both the means and the end. In the following I will attempt to further outline this
argument.
The right to freedom of movement
However, the sudden presence of the protesters in the urban landscape is significant in other ways
than the mere political. In an infrastructural perspective they have managed to bring themselves into
the consideration of the wider public by creating their own infrastructures, and thereby combining
the noncitizens with the citizens of the nation.
As argued above, the camping refugees challenge general assumptions regarding the abilities and
strengths of this marginalized group outside the society. Besides making a claim for recognition as
citizens in line with others in the nation state, another assumption they challenge is concerning the
ability to be mobile. Here the group has shown that despite the fact they are not allowed to move
freely and as they wish, they have nevertheless proved capable of crossing spatial divides, via what
I argue can be named insurgent mobility. As the protesters point out in a statement, and which also
underlines the insurgency and question of legality in their actions;
“The Residenzpflicht (obligation of residence) is like an open prison, which deprive our rights. It
makes us subject to arbitrary and humiliating police controls all over Germany. For us mobility
equals a criminal act.” (Refugeestrike Berlin 2013).
An interesting aspect in this is how it to some extend interrupts with common European ideas about
freedom of movement. As many European nation states are now members of the EU and also a part
of the Schengen Agreement a great amount of European citizens now have the right to cross borders
and move freely in a large part of Europe. This, however, is not an option for the refugees in
Germany and neither is it within the nation state, underlining what Doreen Massey (1991) also
claim, namely that the increased opportunity of mobility in Europe is not necessarily synonymous
with mobility for everybody. Limitations exist and there are still groups who experience the feeling
of being “out of place” (Massey 1991:317). Despite this feeling of being out of place, they have
managed to, at least for a while, transform an urban place into a very political space through an
illegal action. By positioning themselves in places they do not belong (Simone 2006:365) they have
managed to perform some sort of piracy, which does not necessarily produce stability, but

nevertheless creates an image of them as agents instead of passive, or perhaps more precisely
pacified, objectified noncitizens.
It is not only the physical mobility and physical presence in the urban landscape the protesters draw
use of in order to raise their voices. They have also managed to create an electronic space making it
possible to cross the national territories in an attempt to stand out as a united force with other
refugees in other European cities. The internet and the electronic forums2
becomes, what Holston
(2009) terms an auto-constructed infrastructure uniting the noncitizens in Europe in a common
struggle and allowing them to transgress the control of the country they reside in. As Mike Crang
(2000) explains, the public and electronic space offers the opportunity for smaller groups to
overcome distance and a chance to form (Crang 2000:307). In this light it seems evident to consider
the camp and the forums as infrastructures or what Doreen Massey names meeting places (Massey
1991:323) being reproduced through a mix of relations, and not necessarily only relations from the
aforementioned peripheries. The camp becomes a place where residents and visitors of Berlin can
get knowledge of perspectives from the peripheries, and perhaps be confronted with prejudiced
assumptions. From being regarded as marginalized, dispersed and non-political subjects the
protesters now stand out as political agents in a very global network, involving not only the asylum
seekers but also sympathizing activists who contribute in various ways, be it by emptying toilets,
doing dishes, sitting in the info tent or, as some of the neighbors at Oranienplatz has done, letting
protesters take a warm bath. What this also indicates, is that this is an infrastructure whose use
might still be up for negotiation. Even though the end goal seems clearly defined, it is also worth
pointing to the fact that citizens of the nation state also draw use of it as a place where they can
express some sort of political subjectivity. In this might also lay a danger regarding the support of
the cause, as the sympathizing visitors are, so I will argue, from a predominantly white middle class
who can come and go precisely as they wish. Not neglecting the movement towards the urban
squares performed by the refugees and asylum seekers, the supporting activists, like me, are without
a doubt able to move in a completely different, freely and not least legal flow.
2 See for instance: Refugee Camp Vienna - http://refugeecampvienna.noblogs.org/post/2012/12/29/international-
statement-of-solidarity/; Refugeestrike Berlin - http://asylstrikeberlin.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/2013-berlin-
strikers-new-years-message-to-all-refugees/; Refugee Struggle Congress Munich -
http://refugeecongress.wordpress.com/about/; Calais Migrant Solidarity -
http://calaismigrantsolidarity.wordpress.com/; Refugees in Netherland - http://rechtopbestaan.nl/

Conclusion
Concluding, the notion insurgent citizenship might not be what best encapsulates the case of the
striking refugees and asylum seekers, simply because they are not quite there yet. Instead I argue
the notion insurgent mobility can better describe the process we are now witnessing. Whether or not
the end result will be an insurgent form of citizenship remains to be said, it seems however an uphill
struggle to be included in the infrastructures of the nation state. What is interesting in this case
though is how the protesters via autonomous and auto-constructed infrastructures try to come into
consideration of both the legislative, sovereign nation state as well as its citizens. The end goal is to
be able to move up the social ladder (the right to rights), and the attempt to get there is via insurgent
mobility (the right to freedom of movement). What they are performing is ultimately insurgent
mobility, balancing on the dichotomies of what is legal/illegal, legitimate/illegitimate and also
possible/impossible.
.

Literature:
Bousfield, Dan (2005): The Logic of Sovereignty and the Agency of the Refugee: Recovering the Political
from ‘Bare Life’. YCISS Working Paper No. 36, October 2005.
Crang, Mike (2000): Public Space, Urban Space and Electronic Space: Would the Real City Please Stand
Up? Urban Studies 37 (2): 301-317.
Holston, James (2009): Insurgent Citizenship In an Era of Global Urban Peripheries. City & Society 21 (2):
245-267.
Massey, Doreen (1991): A global sence of place i Reading Human Geography. Arnold. (s. 315-323)
Simone, AbdouMailq (2006): Pirate Towns: Reworking Social and Symbolic Infrastructures in Johannesburg
and Douala. Urban Studies 43 (2): 357-370).
Web sources:
Globaleyesprod (2012): Where are you going?! – Asylum Seekers in Germany. Viewed at the following
webpage: http://the-mag.net/where-are-you-going/
Karawane, Daniel (2012): FIRST DECLARATION OF THE REFUGEE TENT BERLIN. Viewed at the
following webpage: http://asylstrikeberlin.wordpress.com/2012/08/05/first-declaration-of-striking-asylum-
seekers-in-berlin/
Refugee Camp Vienna (2012): Viewed at the following webpage:
http://refugeecampvienna.noblogs.org/post/2012/12/29/international-statement-of-solidarity/
Refugeestrike Berlin (2013): Viewed at the following webpage:
http://asylstrikeberlin.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/2013-berlin-strikers-new-years-message-to-all-refugees/
Refugee Tribunal (2013): Viewed at the following webpage: http://www.refugeetribunal.org/?p=13

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