From citizenship to mobile commons: reflections on the local struggles of undocumented migrants in the city of Malmö, Sweden

Abstract

Focusing on undocumented migrants’ struggles over rights and representation in the city of Malmö, Sweden, this article argues that these practices constitute an enactment of citizenship. Drawing on the literature on autonomy of migration, we also explore acts of solidarity beyond the terminology of citizenship through the concept of ‘mobile commons’. We focus on experiences and activist practices of undocumented migrants as well as citizens in Malmö; the development of local guidelines extending limited social benefits rights to undocumented migrants; and a theatre performance involving undocumented actors. The analysis is organised thematically around the tensions emerging from these empirical cases: between visibility and invisibility, mobility and immobility and access to social rights. We argue that encounters between citizens and non-citizens can create situated spaces ‘in between’, by claiming citizen rights and by going beyond the language of citizenship.