In my organizing work, how can I effectively challenge the deeply ingrained narratives that glorify stasis and territorial sovereignty, especially when these ideas are so intertwined with national identities and security fears? How do I build a movement that reimagines human mobility and hybridity as fundamental to liberation without being co-opted into existing hierarchies or nationalist frameworks?
Borders survive because imagination obeys them. Start by sabotaging the story, not the fence. Collect personal migration tales from elders, refugees, tourists, commuters, stitch them into travelling exhibitions that tour village halls and airport lounges alike. Each narrative dissolves the myth that humans are meant to stay put. Pair this with public rituals of movement: bike caravans that ride former front lines, “borderless picnics” where participants share food simultaneously in multiple countries via livestream, issuing one another handmade “citizenship of elsewhere” passports. The spectacle reframes mobility as ordinary joy rather than threat.
Behind the symbolism, build material corridors of solidarity: sanctuary supply chains that move medicine, art and legal aid across jurisdictions; a cooperative fund whose bylaws forbid discrimination by birthplace; a distributed decision platform where members vote from any GPS coordinate. These parallel institutions practise the sovereignty we preach, proving that belonging can be networked rather than territorial. Because they rely on mutual benefit, not charity, they resist nationalist co-optation.
Theory of change: each act chips at the cognitive border first, then erects an enticing alternative governance model. When people experience freedom of movement in miniature, the state’s monopoly on defining “legitimate travel” starts to look absurd.
Which border in your region is most vulnerable to an imaginative puncture, and what moving ritual could expose the crack?
How can we design a shared, participatory ritual that not only visibly challenges the dominant narratives of border legitimacy but also concretely demonstrates the possibility of interconnected sovereignty, enabling participants to experience first-hand the tension between existing structures and our vision of mobility as liberation?
Imagine a “Moving Assembly” that never sits still. Choose a stretch of border where road, rail or river lets bodies flow with minimal checkpoints. Announce a rolling convergence: walkers, cyclists, boaters, even wheelchair brigades depart from multiple directions carrying small, sealed vials of local soil or water. At pre-set times the streams merge, blend their vials into a single vessel and immediately divide it back out so each traveler now holds a literal mixture of territories. While in motion, participants convene flash councils on headsets or train aisles, debating shared resolutions that only become valid once the group has physically crossed the line and recrossed it. Decisions are logged on a blockchain that ignores nationality, recording GPS and time instead of passport data. Every step dramatises the absurdity of fixed sovereignty; every mixed-soil vial is proof that borders cannot prevent intermingling.
Pressure point: authorities must either tolerate the ritual, showcasing their impotence, or block peaceful movement, unmasking the violence beneath “security.” The Assembly continues monthly, altering routes so power cannot routinise repression, and seeding micro-gardens with the blended soil to mark each crossing.
Which route near you combines symbolic resonance and logistical feasibility for launching the first Moving Assembly?
We can co-create a ritual like a “Shared Movement Circle,” where participants from different regions gather to perform synchronized acts of mobility—dancing, walking, or storytelling—across designated border zones. This visibly disrupts the narrative of impermeable borders and demonstrates interconnected sovereignty through collective action. By involving local communities and emphasizing shared stories, we make the experience deeply personal, highlighting mobility as a fundamental human right and a form of resistance.
Anchor the Shared Movement Circle in radical choreography: pick a border stretch with overlapping jurisdictions—train platform, riverbank, street that flips sovereignty every few meters. Mark the ground with washable pigment spirals instead of straight lines; dancers, walkers and storytellers flow along the curve, crossing the official line dozens of times in minutes while livestreaming a single, border-agnostic beat. Each crossing triggers a collective chant of the GPS coordinates, not country names, so place supplants state.
To hard-wire interconnected sovereignty, weave decision-making into motion: a portable circle of drums moves among crews; whoever holds a drum proposes the next route or story, consent signaled by feet stepping in rhythm. No fixed leaders, just momentum as authority. Archive every iteration on a shared ledger that records rhythm patterns rather than personal identity, making repression data-poor.
Pressure logic: officials must criminalise dance or admit the line is porous. Either outcome punctures legitimacy and broadcasts the memory of joyful transgression.
What unexpected public space near your chosen border could convert spontaneous footwork into a broadcast proof that sovereignty can loop and swirl rather than fence us in?