Voices from the Margins

Week 1

Traveller, Gypsy, and Roma communities (Friends, Families & Travelers)

Travellers are one of the most marginalised groups in British society, to the extent that they can be directly targeted in proposed legislation with little outcry (e.g.the recent PCSC Bill specifically creates a crime of “residing on land without consent in or with a vehicle”, and empowers police to seize traveller property). The situation of travellers in the UK also intersects with a number of other pressing justice issues in society today, including poverty, freedom of movement and the preservation of culture.

Friends, Families & Travellers are “the only national charity that works on behalf of all Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities regardless of ethnicity,culture or background”. They seek “to end racism and discrimination against Gypsies, Travellers and Roma and to protect the right to pursue a nomadic way of life”. They “support individuals and families with the issues that matter most to them, at the same time as working to transform systems and institutions to address the root causes of these inequalities”.

Week 2
Trans people (Action for Trans Health Durham)

Trans people’s lives have become one of the most prominent battlegrounds for contemporary culture wars. Yet in this heightened context, trans people are also disempowered in society, experiencing prejudice, high rates of poverty, and lack of access to mainstream media platforms in which many of the fires of these wars are stoked. Finally, issues of gender intersect particularly with issues of race and class, for example with the policing of ‘abnormal’ bodies in contexts where white bodies have historically been seen as the norm, or where trans people are pitted as a middle-class ‘elite’ against the working class communities in which many trans people live.

A4TH Durham campaigns for democratic trans health care.They recently spoke before the Women’s and Equalities Committee as part of its inquiry into the reform of the Gender Recognition Act 2004.

Week 3

Refugees and migrants (Migrants Organise)
Asylum and migration are major global issues that have also risen to prominence in recent Catholic social thought. For many reasons, refugees often lack access to positions of influence from which they can advocate for themselves, and as a result these discussions tend to be about refugees, rather than led by them. This has in part facilitated the growth and institutionalisation of a sensationalising, xenophobic politics which consolidate their exclusion within society. Yet they also face numerous obstacles to their own security and self-advocacy in our society, including the difficulties of the asylum system, laws forbidding work and resultant poverty, and the ever-present risk of indefinite detention.

Migrants Organise is “a platform where refugees and migrants organise for power, dignity and justice”. They “develop leadership and open up spaces for relational, organised participation of migrants and refugees in public life”, and were featured on Netflix’s Chelsea in 2017.

Week 4

People who have or do experience mental health distress (National Survivor User Network)
Mental health distress is often an obstacle for people in a society that is not constructed to accommodate it, serving as an obstacle to employment, a source of stigma, and a practical barrier to participation in public life.Additionally, the medicalisation of mental health distress leads to issues around agency, such as deprivation of liberties, and general attitudes which doubt the agency of those who experience it. Finally, mental health as a concept is bound up in issues of race and gender, serving as the foundation fora medicalised discourse which has historically been used to circumvent the agency of marginalised groups, and pathologise forms of resistance.

NSUN is “a network of individuals with experience of mental distress and grassroots, user-led community groups, acting as an infrastructure organisation and a sector voice for user-led or lived-experience-led groups who work to support the mental health of those in their communities”. They “work to address the social, material and cultural determinants of mental distress and recognise that the inequality,marginalisation, and the conditions of society and systems play a large part in people’s experiences of mental ill-health, trauma, and distress”.

Week 5

LGBT Catholics(LGBT Catholics Westminster)

LGBT+ people are subject to multiple marginalisations, not least within the Church itself. LGBT+ people experience increased rates of poverty, homelessness, unemployment,mental health problems, substance abuse and violence, and the challenges they face along with the way they arise in particular contexts can shape experiences of things like migration, healthcare, policing and the justice system, and Church membership. This situation is exacerbated by the way that LGBT+ lives have become a prominent front in the culture wars, which vastly over determine the kinds of significances attached to the place of LGBT+ people in society.

LGBT Catholics Westminster are “part of the RC Archdiocese of Westminster's pastoral provision to LGBT+ Catholics, their families and friends”, and extend “a warm welcome to all LGBT+ Catholics, their friends,partners and families and indeed to all people of good will, LGBT+ or not”.They inherit the mission of the ‘Soho Masses’, established by the diocese to encourage the “full and active participation” of LGBT+ people in the Church,and have a long history of working with and in the Church for LGBT+ rights. Their group meets in the Arrupe Hall here at the LJC after the 17:30 Mass at the Church of the Immaculate Conception (next door) on the 2^nd and 4^th Sundays of the month.

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