It doesn’t matter where you come from, not even if you are from here. If you do not fit the stereotypical white, European, well-educated and well-off stereotype, you have a problem you cannot escape: unequal treatment and discrimination on racial grounds.

Based on this premise, at Platoniq we have initiated a project that seeks new narratives that can compensate for the polarisation suffered by racialised people in Spain with the intention of elaborating a Migrant Constitution in a participatory manner.

In search of new narratives

Through several editions of the Migrant Dialogues, the project identifies the kind of impact that processes of polarisation and misinformation have on migrant communities from a personal, emotional, economic, social and political perspective.

In the first edition, three collectives from Barcelona, Furia Mexicana, Puerta de África and Singa Barcelona, were working on the effect that new discourses have on raising awareness of migrant issues from the point of view of the affected communities.

In addition to the three workshops, together with four content creators coordinated by La Fera: Luna Andrade, Patricia Vizcaíno, Pedro García Mejía and Shalana Rodríguez, new narrative forms were explored by talking about migratory conflicts, the migrant economy, the role of Europe or the advantages of social and solidarity cooperativism. Each of them contributed an audiovisual piece that triggered debate, from which a staged response had to be developed. The result is a series of pieces of a diverse nature that seek to move the public and raise awareness of these issues.

In the second edition, we worked with a group of single migrant mothers. Through different dynamics of the Legislative Theatre, we identified basic scenes from their daily lives that had to do with some of the dimensions of migrant oppression. The challenge was then to generate together with them an emancipatory story that went through identifying the opportunities for improvement that would be necessary so that experiences like this would not be repeated.

A migrant constitution

The Migrant Dialogues are a first step in the elaboration of a Migrant Constitution that aims to give a voice to and understand the model of society of a totally heterogeneous group of people who are traversed by the contradictions of a complex world, which must be navigated if we want to build a fairer and more egalitarian society.

In the words of anti-racist activist Desirée Bela-Lobedde: ‘I would be interested in a document that addresses racism, anti-racism, the repeal of the law on foreigners, the elimination of CIEs, the colonial legacy in Spanish cities, the decolonisation of the curriculum, and so on. But once all this has been collected, I would like it to go through a political process so that it has legal force. That’s where we run into the obstacle. The easiest part would be to draw up the Constitution itself, but it is difficult to take it to the political institutions for them to consider it. Ideologically it would be a very necessary and useful instrument. By bringing together people from different collectives, holding meetings, etc., it would be possible to reach a consensus and gather together what is of interest to the African, Moroccan, North African, Roma, etc. community’.

It is not enough to know that a problem is happening, or even to try to change the policies that make it happen; it is necessary to change the mentality and sensitivity of each and every one of those who share the public space in a society such as Spain’s so that this space can be common, shared and experienced naturally by everyone.