Security is no accident: considering safe(r) spaces in the transnational Migrant Solidarity camps of Calais1

This chapter examines the theory and organisational practices of ensuring ‘safety’ for those participating in transnational migrant solidarity collectives. It uses ethnographic materials gained from participatory activist scholarship in Calais and London migrant solidarity collectives and assesses the ability of these groups to respond to the differentiated vulnerabilities that individuals bring to the protest camp- particularly in terms of the experiences and responses to structural oppression such as racism, sexism and homophobia. The current preference for safer spaces policies as one way of mediating conflict in activist collectives will be examined in terms of who may be left behind when individual trauma or addiction can leave people unable or unwilling to act according to the rules that these policies prescribe, and seeks different modes of collaboration that may not always feel safe or comfortable for all involved.