Public appearance and witnessing in two Berlin migrant activist groups

Abstract

This article analyses two Berlin-based migrants’ groups: the International Women* Space and Anu: the literary Middle East Union who, in their memory activism, create witnessing platforms and call for state accountability for its discrimination of refugees and migrants. I examine virtual and in-person events organized by both groups in 2020–2024, reports in the German and international press on those events, as well as the groups’ own publications. I show that these memory activists expressly establish a politics of solidarity in discourse-based interventions, in which they address racism, inequality and invisibility. I argue that the groups’ self-authorizing public ventures enable witnessing and mutual recognition among metropolitan residents. This analysis is significant for understanding how non-citizen memory activists enact a space of appearance, in which they establish social presence, cultivate agency and imagine alternative futures.