When migrants create spaces for themselves in an institution, people who have power in the same institutions often react with discomfort. They express their concerns that these migrants-only spaces will lead to exclusion. Yet, these individuals who express concerns, already have broad access to institutions, they have easier access to services, more represented, and they have more positions. As a migrant scholar and cultural organiser, I observe this pattern in academia and cultural institutions across Belgium and Europe, highlighting anxiety over migrant autonomy rather than fairness.
For example, at a Belgian university, a migrant scholar made a simple network for fellow migrant scholars to connect and share initiatives. While the initiative is small, the university’s first reaction was one of moral alarm, questioning why non-migrant scholars, especially those working on migration, were not included. Framed as a concern for inclusion, these questions reveal a deeper unease; migrant-led initiatives disrupt expectations that institutional life should always serve to those closest to power. This issue goes beyond universities; across Belgium and Europe, migrant-led cultural initiatives face similar challenges. Projects designed for underrepresented migrant communities led by migrants are often questioned by funders about how they will include non-migrants. And these projects must justify their boundaries and goals, unlike initiatives led by non-migrants, while those initiatives are also challenged, the focus is more on practical grounds rather than their goals and boundaries.
So, questions on exclusion are not neutral; they manage power. By treating migrant autonomy with suspicion, institutions re-center the comfort of those who are privileged already. The irony lies in the notion that a small migrant-led space could harmfully exclude those used to having unquestioned institutional access. What is at stake is not exclusion, but the loss of automatic access for the privileged. These reactions are reinforced by liberal inclusion frameworks that view openness as an absolute good, quickly labelling boundaries as unjust while institutional dominance remains unseen. As Sara Ahmed has argued, diversity work often allows institutions to appear ethical while avoiding deeper change. Inclusion becomes a performance that manages difference rather than redistributing power.
For many migrants, institutional spaces are neither neutral nor safe; their presence is questioned, knowledge is doubted, and experiences are filtered through stereotypes. Migrant workers and scholars are expected to explain themselves or soften their critique to be acceptable. Migrant-led spaces are vital because they create environments where people can speak without translation, share harm without proof, and build ideas without constant scrutiny. Thus, migrant-only and migrant-led spaces are not separatist; they are survival infrastructures that enable political imagination, safety, and intellectual autonomy, fostering joy as a condition of endurance in systems that exploit migrant labour while questioning their presence. Importantly, these spaces provide a supportive environment for processing grief and anger coming from inequalities and struggles. These spaces allow for collective and meaningful reflection, as well as the organisation of both material and non-material resources when possible. It is worth noting that a common counterargument is that restricting participation in these spaces can disrupt collective struggle. While this argument is sometimes made in good faith, it falls short when we acknowledge the reality of structural inequality. Migrants claiming one room do not fragment institutions that have never been equally open to them. Fragmentation arises from unequal access, not from migrant self-organisation.
To take inclusion seriously, we should ask why institutions assume entitlement to every space, including those created because institutional environments are unsafe or unequal. A university or cultural sector that cannot tolerate migrant autonomous spaces is not committed to inclusion but to control. The goal should be to build a society where dignity is not kept only by the structurally included and where migrants do not need to justify gathering on their own terms. Everyone deserves dignity, so what we should really ask is; how do we hold those in power accountable so all can live with dignity, migrant or not.