RESEARCH PROJECT

Contentious Solidarities

In an increasingly interconnected world, acts of solidarity across social, cultural, and national boundaries are indispensable in addressing violence, oppression, and injustice. However, the dynamics of solidarity are rarely straightforward; they often entail tensions, hierarchies, and contradictions. This project, titled "Contentious Solidarities," aims to critically interrogate the nuanced and occasionally paradoxical ways in which individuals and movements express empathy and enact solidarity with victims of violence. It seeks to explore the intersections and disjunctures within solidarities, examining how one struggle’s contentious space can serve as a platform for amplifying analogous struggles, while also analyzing how solidarities may engender hierarchies that privilege certain victims over others.

Judith Butler’s seminal work on the grievability of life provides a critical lens through which to examine these dynamics. Butler interrogates the politics of recognition, questioning who is deemed fully human and whose lives are rendered mournable. She posits that societies construct normative frameworks that render some lives publicly grievable, while relegating others to the periphery of empathy, excluded from acknowledgment in their loss. This framework is acutely relevant to ongoing conflicts in Sudan, Myanmar, Gaza, Ethiopia, and Ukraine, where stark disparities in empathy and solidarity—manifesting as empathy gaps—highlight the divergence between global and local responses to suffering. In the context of Israel/Palestine, these disparities are particularly pronounced, reflecting entrenched narratives and hierarchies that determine whose humanity is recognized and whose suffering is acknowledged.

Protest movements globally have long endeavored to bridge such empathy gaps, particularly in instances such as the lack of recognition of migrant suffering, the victimization of rural populations in the Global South by the climate crisis, or the marginalization and systemic abandonment of BPoC communities. These movements often operate on the assumption that the public’s indifference stems from insufficient knowledge about the conditions of the oppressed. Within this paradigm, the visibility of embodied suffering is posited as a catalyst for moral outrage and a subsequent demand for justice. Yet, despite persistent efforts to disseminate narratives of loss, hardship, and destruction, social movements in solidarity with victimized populations frequently encounter indifference or, more troublingly, outright hostility. Efforts to highlight civilian casualties in Gaza, for instance, are often met with counter-claims that Hamas uses civilians as "human shields," thereby shifting responsibility for Palestinian deaths away from Israeli military actions. Documented reports from human rights organizations are frequently dismissed or discredited, often with accusations of anti-Semitic bias, further eroding the legitimacy of Palestinian victimhood. Consequently, the grievability of Palestinian lives is systematically undermined, with their suffering not only dehumanized but actively contested as politically or morally suspect.

This raises a critical question: Is the absence of solidarity mobilization efforts attributable to a lack of awareness, or does it reflect a deeper, systemic refusal to recognize certain lives as grievable? This question underscores the limitations of relying solely on information dissemination to cultivate empathy, particularly within societies where normative frameworks devalue specific groups.

Against this backdrop, the project “Contentious Solidarities” seeks to address a range of critical questions, including why certain groups and individuals elicit more empathy and solidarity than others? How do solidarities intersect or mutually reinforce one another, and under what circumstances do they create hierarchies or exclusions? What mechanisms enable solidarity movements to construct, sustain, or disrupt these dynamics?

In an attempt to address these questions it focuses on transnational solidarity mobilizations across four distinct domains:

1. Struggles for national liberation, exemplified by solidarity with Palestinians, Sahrawis, and Kurds, illuminate how solidarity movements navigate the complexities of colonial legacies, resistance discourses, and geopolitical entanglements.

2. Struggles for recognition, encompassing solidarity with queer communities in oppressive contexts, women in patriarchal societies, and sans-papiers, highlight how identity politics and intersectionality inform recognition-based solidarities.

3. Struggles for restitution, including those involving victims of climate disasters and corporate malfeasance, showcase how environmental justice and corporate accountability intersect with global threat scenarios.

4. Struggles for retribution, such as those involving victims of warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq, survivors of authoritarian regimes like post-Assad Syria, and victims of civil war, such as in Lebanon and Ireland, show how solidarity movements engage with historical accountability, reparations, and reconciliation.

Methodologically, the project follows mixed-methods approach. Narrative interviews with activists, organizers, and participants in solidarity movements aitm to uncover their personal motivations, lived experiences, and perceptions of overlapping or conflicting solidarities. Mapping and visual analysis will scrutinize the symbols and spatial representations of solidarity, including flags, banners, murals, and online imagery, to map the spatial and symbolic intersections of solidarity movements. Discourse analysis will delve into political pamphlets, protest calls, and speeches to uncover the narratives and framing strategies employed, examining how language constructs inclusions and exclusions within solidarities. Finally, protest event analyses help identify instances where solidarity movements mutually reinforce or detract from one another.

The anticipated outcomes of this research include a deeper understanding of the factors that make certain solidarities resonate more than others, insights into the conditions under which solidarities overlap constructively or establish hierarchies, and actionable frameworks for activists and policymakers to cultivate more inclusive and interconnected solidarity movements.

Articles in the frame of this project:

• 2025 (forthcoming). Staatsräson vs Weltordnung: Gaza als Feuerprobe wertebasierter Außenpolitik im Globalen Süden, Zeitschrift für Außen- und Sicherheitspolitik, 18(1) (with Marcus Schneider).

• 2025 (forthcoming). Zwischen Wissenschaftsfreiheit und Palästina-Solidarität: Deutsche Hochschulen als umkämpfte Räume, Forschungsjournal Soziale Bewegungen, 37(1) (with Lilian Mauthofer).

• 202X. Tractors and Bicycles against Water Reservoirs: Agricultural Unions, Environmental Mobilisation, and Cross-Movement Coalitions against Climate Change Adaptation in Western France, Social Movement Studies (with Niklar Mariotte)

• 2024. Conflict Over the Conflict: The Restriction of Palestine Solidarity and Academic Freedom in Germany, APSA MENA Bulletin, 7(2): 66-72 (with Lilian Mauthofer).