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Scholarly interest in undocumented migrants' struggles over citizenship has surged in recent years. Critical, theoretically inspired scholarship on the political has embraced these struggles as evidence that the current order can be disrupted. However, empirical studies of undocumented activism in the United States and Europe have revealed that pressures to conform to dominant norms and discourses, representational oligarchies and categorical fragmentation can lead activists to reproduce rather than disrupt the order. The papers in this symposium aim to advance this discussion by comparing the findings of case studies of undocumented immigrant struggles around the world. In this introduction to the symposium, we argue that disruption and reproduction constitute two logics of collective action that continually express themselves in immigrant rights mobilisations. We present a framework that outlines how undocumented activists navigate both logics in their ongoing quest to construct subjects, acts and spaces capable of disrupting the status quo. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the turn of the century, urban scholars have argued that cities are the sites par excellence where new political subjects are emerging and changing the face of citizenship. Undocumented activism is often invoked as an example of this phenomenon and an object of renewed interest. What remains unclear, however, is how these precarious actors, who are barred from institutional channels for voicing their grievances and who have little access to resources, become political. This article argues that the urban interstices-or the spaces in between legality and illegality, visibility and invisibility and formality and informality-offer strategic opportunities for undocumented activism. I introduce a theoretical understanding of liminal politics that focuses on the spatial and symbolic practices by means of which the undocumented, who find themselves betwixt and between statuses, develop innovative methods of political expression. Based on a multi-sited ethnography, I demonstrate that undocumented activists craft urban space as a 'backstage' as well as a 'frontstage' for their struggles over citizenship. On the one hand, undocumented immigrants build safe spaces in which they can (re)imagine their subjectivities and develop political scripts. On the other hand, they stage and enact these political scripts by appropriating public space. This study therefore highlights the spatiality, theatricality and performativity of emerging forms of urban citizenship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, undocumented youth have come out of the shadows to claim their rights in the United States. By sharing their stories, these youth gained a voice in the public debate. This article integrates insights from the literature on narratives and emotions to study how storytelling is employed within the undocumented youth movement in Chicago. I argue that undocumented youth strategically use storytelling for diverging purposes depending on the context, type of interaction, and audience involved. Based on ethnographic research, I show that storytelling allows them to incorporate new members, mobilize constituencies, and legitimize grievances. In each of these contexts, emotions play a key role in structuring the social transaction between storyteller and audience. Storytelling is thus a community-building, mobilizing, and claims-making practice in social movements. At a broader level, this case study demonstrates the power of storytelling as a political tool for marginalized populations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]