A promise of listening: Migrant Justice and the London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

Leah Bassel

doi:10.1177/03063968221081417

A promise of listening: Migrant Justice and the London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

Leah Bassel

University of Roehampton

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

2 Citations (Scopus)

45 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

This article explores the Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) hearing, ‘The Hostile Environment on Trial’, which took place in London, United Kingdom in 2018. When calling a gathering a ‘peoples’ tribunal’, certain kinds of listening and attention become possible, that are shaped by specific histories and contexts. I consider the kind of listening that took place during the London PPT and what changed as a result. I argue that the legal framing that comes with calling a gathering a ‘tribunal’ both compels and excludes, and the politics of listening for migrant justice within such a space is laden with imperial pitfalls and power relations that must continuously be worked through. Instead of a legal remedy, what results is a social relation, an ‘Us’ created through the mutual effort (Lugones 1990) of organising and participating in the Tribunal that can open different understandings of migrant justice and its connection to wider struggles.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	35-55
Number of pages	21
Journal	Race & Class
Volume	63
Issue number	4
Early online date	8 Apr 2022
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/03063968221081417
Publication status	Published - 2022
Externally published	Yes

Bibliographical note

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) which permits any use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

Funder

This work was supported by the Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship ‘Listening for Change’. Thanks to Kamran Khan, Kim Rygiel and Emma Samman for their generous engagement with this paper

Keywords

hostile environment policies
imperial pitfalls
international law
listening
London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal (PPT) hearing
migrant justice
migrant workers
the World Tribunal on Iraq (WTI)

Themes

Social Movements and Contentious Politics
Migration (In)Equality and Belonging

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

Access to Document

10.1177/03063968221081417Licence: CC BY

PublishedFinal published version, 850 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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A promise of listening: Migrant Justice and the London Permanent Peoples’ Tribunal

Abstract

Bibliographical note

Funder

Keywords

Themes

UN SDGs

Access to Document

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