A series of weekly online meetings coinciding with the outbreak of the Covid 19 Pandemic in March 2020 up until August 2020. Set up by Sheyla Amelo, Anthony Davies and Marcus (Batata) de Silva, it pulled together an international network of activists, educators and writers from Latin America and Europe. The meetings included various presentations highlighting the struggles of frontline migrant workers, activists in associated sectors/industries with an onus on the disproportionate impact of the pandemic on Black and Brown communities. The aim was to share information and ‘know-how’ on the transmission of the virus, various state responses and community resistance. To this end, members of Ocupação Mauá and Beksin Cruz in Sao Paulo along with the Cleaners and Allied Independent Workers Union in London, made notable contributions. With guidance from James Stevens/SPC and support from volunteer interpreters, a range of online platforms and communication technologies supported an international exchange against a backdrop of social isolation and periodic lockdowns. As a result, archival traces of VagabundoSocial*, consisting of posters, invites, video recordings, diagrams, along with research, texts and emails etc. have been dispersed across ChatB, Discord, Onodo, Spatial Chat, Zoom, YouTube and have been gathered here for ease of access.
*Vagabond/Vagabundo/Vagabunda was a phrase used by the far right president of Brazil Jair Bolsonaro to describe those in the favelas, peripheries and occupied housing regarded as ‘surplus population’.
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Videos
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