Freedom dreaming of migrant justice: Critical reflections on counterspaces and institutional violence in the university

Am J Community Psychol. 2026 Jul 21. doi: 10.1002/ajcp.70089. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

US universities are built on stolen land and sustained through hierarchies of power that produce what migrant justice scholars name as b/order regimes. As institutions that claim to be sites of learning and inclusion, universities are fraught with contradictions as simultaneously sites of dispossession, exclusion, and control. To resist institutional violence, counterspaces emerge as fragile yet powerful sites where freedom dreaming is possible. Drawing from a migrant justice framework, we examine how counterspaces navigate and contest the neocoloniality of the university while creating alternative possibilities for belonging and collective care. Through a critically reflexive praxis, in this article, we grapple with these tensions that entangle us given our positionalities as faculty. We ask: How do we resist institutional violence and b/order regimes within the university to embody migrant justice? We engage this question through two case studies: the Cultural Identity Project, an Alaska Native Elder- and student-centered space for identity affirmation and belonging, and the Undocumented Students & Allies Association, a student-led space for solidarity and resistance. We illuminate how these counterspaces reveal the power of collective freedom dreaming while also being contained and co-opted by power. We argue that freedom dreaming deepens our praxis toward liberation and transformative futures.

PMID:42478561 | DOI:10.1002/ajcp.70089