How memories of international solidarity and migrant justice can disrupt ‘nationalist realism’

My presentation examines nationalism as a form of collective amnesia which renders international solidarity unimaginable. Nationalism as amnesia is connected to other forms of historical amnesia including white amnesia (Hesse 1997) and postcolonial melancholia (Gilroy 2004). It involves the production of ignorance and amnesia towards colonial legacies and present-day global inequalities; histories of migration, and global interdependencies and interconnections. Nationalism-as-amnesia involves the erasure of anti-racist, migrant justice and international solidarity movements from collective memory. This means that collective memory, and particularly those aspects of collective memory that shape a shared sense of our past, become consolidated around nationalism. This results in a nihilistic ‘nationalist realism’ (drawing on Mark Fisher’s ‘capitalist realism’) whereby the nation-state becomes unquestioningly accepted as the only site for politics (Brown 2019; Bhattacharyya et al 2020). Based in UK migration politics but situated in a global context, the presentation will also explore how by memories of international solidarity and migrant justice can disrupt ‘nationalist realism’. It will examine this through specific examples of anti-deportation protests, and how these are remembered over time. For participants and those who witness them (including through the media and social media platforms), anti-deportation protests, migrant justice and solidarity campaigns demonstrate to us that solidarity across borders is both imaginable and practically possible. After they have taken place, the memory of such actions can expand the political imaginary, particularly during moments when nationalist, xenophobic politics are dominant. They remind us that the nation-state cannot be disconnected from its global context, both historically and within the present.