On the 3rd of March, Tripod hosted a ‘Gathering for the Migrant Justice Movement’ at Kinning Park Complex in Glasgow. Many people, active in different parts of the migrant justice movement came together to connect with one another, reflect on the past years and explore how we can strengthen our organising going forward.
The Tripod team was joined over 30 wonderful organisers from No Evictions Network, JustCitizens, Together For Better Life, Not Alone Empowerment, Unity Sisters, Maryhill Integration Network, Migrant Voice, MORE and many other groups, all connected by deep commitment to fighting the worst impacts of the UK Home Office policy and working towards a freer and safer community for all those who make their homes in Scotland.
At a moment of low energy and capacity in the movement, we gathered to take stock and reconnect. We used the ‘movement lifecycle’ as a framework to review the past years and identify what’s happening now – see the resources section below!.
‘When we come together, we lift each other up’
– one participant’s comment on the day
The 3rd of March gathering built on past network meetings including Tripod’s ‘Organising for Power‘ gatherings and Kenmure St, What Next?, which took place one year on from a crucial moment of community resistance. The day gave us a chance to celebrate all the threads of personal and campaign stories that together weave a picture of resistance and community building – including wins to stop evictions and deportations, and a free bus pass for asylum seekers. In the room, we heard pieces of individual and collective journeys of campaigning, organising and support from within communities, from a range of voices, including some very new to Glasgow and beginning their involvement in this movement, as well as those who have been here for some time. We heard about the Unity Centre, which is drawing to a close after offering practical solidarity and a Glasgow home for No Borders organising for the last 17 years. We documented the wins, endings and begininings on a collective timeline. This collaborative history project was both a chance to learn from one another about the processes and behind-the-scenes campaign stories as well as creating what we hope will be a useful reference for anyone wanting to learn about how the movement has got to this place, and past challenges & victories.
Resources
The timeline we created is available in slideshow format for sharing and there’s an open invitation to update, add and elaborate on it to include more depth, variety and your perspective to the voices included already. We know there’s lot more that could be included in this and we want to make it as useful and comprehensive as possible!
If you’d like to contribute any other external events or key campaigning/organising moments to this timeline, please send us an email at o4p@tripodtraining.org or message at 07510 343586 with the date, a 2-3 sentence summary of what happened, a photo or image if you have it and a link to any further information.
Many thanks to Maria Stoian for the beautiful illustrations of the timeline.
Movement life cycle
In the afternoon we learned about the ‘Movement Life Cycle’ tool and discussed how this applies to the migrant justice movement in Scotland.
Social movements are large decentralised constellations of groups & organisations working for a change in society. They have a basic shared vision & sense of how to get there. There can be different degrees of collaboration in a movement. (You can find more definitions here).
Movements are complex systems. In order to achieve change, hundreds or thousands of people must be doing different types of work in relation to each other. What’s more, all this work must also shift and change over time. As a result, it can be hard to know what to do and when… much less to plan for anything in advance! The movement life cycle tool is a framework to help think through and plan for our movement as one, dynamic system.
At the gathering, we concluded that the migrant justice movement in Glasgow is currently in a phase of Contraction/Disillusionment, and slowly entering the Evolution/ Learning & Reflection stage.
Movement life cycle resources
Beautiful Trouble has developed a great interactive resource called ‘Movement Compass’, which can help you explore the movement life cycle.
The Movement Compass builds upon the work of Bill Moyer’s Movement Action Plan, Movement Netlab’s Movement Cycle Matrix, and a few years of painstaking research by movement anthropologist Isa Mayah Mukibi Benros and ActionAid Denmark.
We also recommend this worksheet by Movement Netlab.
Join us next time!
The 3rd of March gathering was the first event in a series of events hosted by Tripod to connect organisers across groups and movements, share learning and build power together! ‘We Need All of Us – Building bridges between our struggles’ follows on Sunday 7th of April from 12.30 pm, register now and explore with us how to bridge differences of identity, politics and experiences to help our movements win.
We’re excited to see you there!