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Art-Making as Social Justice in Za'atari and Calais

In late February 2016, French authorities entered “the Jungle”—an unofficial migrant settlement in the port town of Calais—equipped with tear gas, water guns, and bulldozers to demolish the southern half of the camp. To protest their eviction, some migrants threw stones or staged a hunger strike. Others took to the roofs of their temporary shelters with hand-made signs that read, “We are not terrorists, so don’t destroy our homes,” and “I am searching for freedom in Europe but I find none.” The stones, the strikes, and the signs had little effect; within three weeks, French authorities succeeded in (re)displacing 3,450 of the camp’s residents. The camp has since been dismantled. While clashes between migrants and citizens are not always as violent or as well documented as those that occurred in Calais, they typically emerge from a similar discourse that robs migrants of their individual identity and humanity. Whether positioning migrants as “terrorists” who will bring violence and extremist beliefs to the host nation, or as unwelcome “swarms” who will drain national resources, citizens who perpetuate such xenophobic assumptions suggest that migrants are unworthy of basic services and humane treatment. The absence of migrants’ voices from dominant narratives of “the migrant crisis” ensures that these assumptions remain unchallenged.