Activists to discuss working together over ‘insidious’ violence faced by disabled people and migrants

Grassroots activists fighting for disability and migrant justice are to discuss how they can work together to combat the bureaucratic violence that both groups face at the hands of the state.

The informal public meeting will take place next week at Bristol Old Vic as the theatre becomes the latest venue to host the award-winning mixed reality installation Museum of Austerity.

Museum of Austerity (pictured) will be running at the theatre from Wednesday to Saturday.

Next Friday’s free discussion event*, Building Solidarity in Times of Fear, is designed to run alongside Museum of Austerity.

It will examine how government policies such as the Rwanda plan, restrictions on the right to protest, and the actions of the Department for Work and Pensions, have led to “individual fear”.

Those planning to attend the meeting include activists with organisations that are part of the Disability and Migration Network, such as Disabled People Against Cuts, National Survivor User Network (NSUN), Bristol Defend the Asylum Seekers Campaign and Migration Mobilities Bristol.

Kieran Lewis, NSUN’s rights and migration policy officer, said that groups fighting for disability justice and migrant justice are often seen as separate, but both groups face the same kind of dehumanising rhetoric and bureaucratic violence.

He said that both groups face “very long waits for decisions that will dictate the way you will be able to live your life.

“In a lot of cases, they are having to provide an awful lot of evidence, and to justify things in a way that they should not have to justify.”

And, he said, both systems rely on heavily-criticised outsourcing companies working on behalf of government departments.

The bureaucratic violence, he said, was “insidious” and so activists “really have to pay attention to catch it.

“In both cases, this kind of bureaucratic violence is meant to be a deterrent, either preventing you from accessing the support you need or getting the immigration status that you need.

“It would be great if people were a bit more switched on to this kind of violence.”

Lewis added: “We want to break down the traditional separation there has been between disability rights and migrants’ rights because it’s not helpful to anyone.”

The meeting on Friday (14 June, 2-4pm) is the latest workshop to be held alongside the Museum of Austerity’s spring tour of England.

Each of the workshops has been led by Healing Justice LDN (HJL), as part of its Deaths by Welfare project*.

One of the topics for discussion next Friday will be how groups fighting for disability justice and migration justice can build solidarity and work together more closely on local and national actions.

It will be an informal meeting, without presentations, so that those taking part can share thoughts “on how fear and distress is being weaponised by government”.

Rebecca Yeo, from Disabled People Against Cuts, an activist and academic on disability and migration, said that both groups – people seeking sanctuary in the UK and disabled people – are currently experiencing significant mental distress due to “deliberate government policy”.

She said: “When any life becomes considered disposable, it’s only a matter of time before that is extended to others.

“Many policies are tested on one sector before being taken to a wider population.

“It was under New Labour that people seeking asylum lost the right to choose where to live. People began to be forcibly moved to areas of cheap housing.”

Many years later, in Bristol, the previous Labour-controlled council proposed a plan that would force disabled people to move from their own homes into residential care if their needs were considered too expensive.

Yeo said: “The government is deliberately inciting a culture of fear.

“When they release films of immigration officers bashing down someone’s door, when they incite hatred towards disabled people, when they use ever greater displays of violence at protestors, the purpose is to make us retreat in individual bubbles of fear.

“So, we must do the opposite. We must respond with greater determination and solidarity.”

The idea of bureaucratic violence is at the heart of the Museum of Austerity installation, which uses recordings of verbal testimony given by family members and combines that with state-of-the-art technology to recreate the circumstances that led to the deaths of disabled benefit claimants in the post-2010 austerity years.

The production uses ground-breaking “volumetric capture” techniques that have produced high-quality, three-dimensional images.

It focuses on the stories of claimants whose deaths have all previously been linked by Disability News Service (DNS) to the actions and failings of DWP across its assessments, sanctions and safeguarding systems.

The installation is a co-production of English Touring Theatre, the National Theatre’s Immersive Storytelling Studio and Trial & Error Studio.

*To book a place at the free event, visit the Bristol Old Vic website. There will be a BSL interpreter at the discussion

**DNS editor John Pring has worked on both the Deaths by Welfare and Museum of Austerity projects

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