Conference Program

Educational research and policy discussions concerning migrants and refugees frequently portray young migrants as passive recipients of integration policies or educational interventions. Such framings risk reproducing epistemic hierarchies in which migrants appear primarily as objects of governance rather than as knowledgeable social and political actors. Responding to recent calls for participatory and emancipatory approaches in migration research, this paper examines how migrant youth activism can be understood as a site of democratic participation, learning, and knowledge production.

The paper analyses the sit-strike organised by Afghan refugee youth in Gothenburg, Sweden, in August 2017. The protest emerged in the aftermath of the tightening of Swedish asylum policy following the so-called “refugee crisis” of 2015. During ten days of continuous demonstration at Olof Palme Square, followed by weekly marches to the Swedish Migration Agency, young asylum seekers publicly articulated demands to stop deportations to Afghanistan and to recognise their right to remain. By occupying a central urban space and addressing both authorities and the broader public, the participants attempted to transform their position from objects of migration policy into subjects of political speech.

Empirically, the study draws on multiple sources: documentation produced by participants during the protest (including diaries, meeting notes, and texts), retrospective interviews with organisers conducted several years after the events, and contemporary media coverage of the demonstrations. These materials allow us to analyse how the protest was organised, how claims were articulated, and how the actions of the youth activists were interpreted within the wider public sphere.

The analysis engages with Jacques Rancière’s conception of democracy as moments in which those “without a part” interrupt an established social order by asserting their equality. From this perspective, the sit-strike can be interpreted as a democratic intervention in which young asylum seekers challenged dominant classifications that positioned them as voiceless or temporary subjects within Swedish society. Through collective action in public space, the participants enacted what Rancière describes as dissensus, transforming experiences that are often treated as marginal or inaudible into visible and legitimate political claims.

The paper argues that such activist practices can be understood as forms of democratic learning and epistemic intervention. By translating lived experiences of migration into public claims about justice, belonging and rights, the participants generated new forms of political subjectivity and knowledge about migration. Recognising these practices as meaningful contributions to democratic life invites educational research to reconsider how migrant and refugee agency can be acknowledged within research methodologies, educational practices, and democratic institutions.