Solidarity and The Politics of Redress: Structural Injustice, History and Counter-Finalities

This paper examines Nuti’s accounts of structural injustice and historical injustice in the light of a political dilemma that confronted Young’s work on structure injustice. The dilemma emerges from a paradox that can be stated simply: justly addressing structural injustice would require that those subject to structural injustice enjoy the kind of privileged position of decision-making power that their being subject to structural injustice denies them. The dilemma thus concerns how to justly address structural injustice. I argue that Nuti’s account is currently unable to provide an adequate theorization of how to address this dilemma because it lacks an account of political solidarity, but also that her account provides important resources for dissolving a dispute between two competing theories of solidarity in a way that facilitates the articulation of an account of political solidarity that is adequate to addressing the political dilemma.

Exiles as Solidary Intermediaries

This chapter explores solidarity as a mode of collective action by which exiles ought to seek assistance. It applies Avery Kolers’s account of political solidarity, which is especially attentive to the asymmetries between those seeking assistance—solidary objects—and those providing assistance—solidary agents. In particular, Kolers’s requirement of deference addresses concerns about motivation, coordination, and asymmetry. I argue that, in order to realize this model of solidarity, a third category of actors—solidary intermediaries—is essential. I outline the requirements of acting as a solidary intermediary and assess how well exiles can meet these requirements. Drawing on the case study of Chilean exiles, I illustrate exiles’ role in enabling solidarity and the challenges they face in doing so.

Universal Politics

This chapter focuses on (i) explicating the Žižekian conception of “negative universality,” which foregrounds the antagonisms of the social, making these a basis for political solidarity; (ii) contrasting a negative conception of universality with mainstream notions of universalism (e.g., “abstract universalism”), which often have neocolonial implications (e.g., the rights of Europeans cloaked as universal rights); and (iii) outlining why there is a pressing need for a negative universality today in the face of the seeming invincibility of postpolitical global capitalism. Given the postmodern skepticism of embracing any universal project, the chapter argues that a negative conception of universality not only opens up spaces for reconfiguring the status quo but also forefronts the struggles of the most marginalized.

“Police Brutality Exposed”

This article explores the conditions for changing news media coverage of police brutality, focusing on the Chicago Tribune. Police have historically dominated news about policing, resulting in very limited coverage of wrongdoing. Following the murders of Fred Hampton and Mark Clark by Chicago Police officers, a racially and politically heterogenous coalition exposed the connection between police brutality and knowledge production. Activists developed a radical critique of police brutality’s role in sustaining an unequal social order and opened new possibilities for political solidarity. When longtime Chicago machine alderman Ralph Metcalfe challenged Mayor Richard J. Daley on the issue, “regular” Black Democrats came to join liberals and radicals in demanding change. The conflict generated by Metcalfe’s revolt provided both a justification and a set of questions for the Tribune’s investigative task force to engage. In a pathbreaking series of investigative reports on police brutality in 1973, the task force convincingly demonstrated the existence of widespread police brutality but also tamed its political significance with bureaucratic reform. The dilemmas of coalition politics that shaped this investigative reporting and the response to it continue to structure the choices faced by political movements seeking meaningful transformation today.

Sweden, South Africa and the business of partnership in the 1990s

This article examines the background and ambitions of the large-scale Swedish-South Africa Partnership Week that was rolled out across South Africa in November 1999. The Swedish delegation was spearheaded by Prime Minister Göran Persson and consisted of 800 Swedes; high-level ministers, diplomats, civil society representatives and business leaders. The analysis places particular emphasis on the involvement of Swedish multinationals and the central role played by the public relations agency Rikta Kommunikation. Its focus lies on the broader pedagogical function that the Week was intended to have, primarily from a Swedish point of view. I argue that the stated aim to forge an economic partnership between Sweden and South Africa as the logical extension of decades of historical political solidarity was a means of ensuring that citizens learned to understand the pressures and demands of the new era of globalisation. The foreseeable end of Swedish aid to South Africa was to be the dawn of self-sustaining economic relations; “business interests” – for so long derided by the anti-apartheid activists – were henceforth to lead the way. In light of this, I conclude by arguing that the official launch and marketing of a bilateral partnership in 1999 can be seen as part of a government-funded effort to adapt Swedish internationalism to a new era.

Hiroshima/Vietnam/Tule Lake

The origin of Asian American political identity was not in cultural nationalism but in diasporic consciousness, most notably in the concept of solidarity with Third World peoples struggling against imperialism around the globe. The poetry of Janice Mirikitani juxtaposes locations from Vietnam to Zimbabwe to the Tule Lake internment camp, making transnational political solidarity prior to, not dependent upon, racial identification. In contrast, the anthology Aiiieeeee!, often cited as the origin of Asian American literary politics, emphasizes the integrity of the individual writer over communal identification. Restoring Mirikitani’s place in the history of Asian American literature also restores a coalitional, transnational vision of Asian American politics that lays the groundwork for a contemporary poetics of the Asian diaspora.

Masses and Power

The article is dedicated to the issue of political solidarity where masses act as a control subject and object at the same time. Political and legal technologies gained traction in the art nouveau period when the modern political landscape was formed. This experience remains relevant today.

Decolonizing Refugee Studies, Standing up for Indigenous Justice: Challenges and Possibilities of a Politics of Place

This paper interrogates the challenges and potentials for solidarity between refugees and Indigenous peoples by bringing decolonial, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist critiques in different parts of the world, including in white settler colonies and in the Third World, into conversation with each other and with Refugee Studies. The first section of the paper offers two analytical steps towards decolonizing mainstream Refugee Studies. The first step involves identifying, analyzing and problematizing what we may call “an elephant in the room,” a parallax gap between Refugee Studies and studies of International Politics. The second analytical step is problematizing and challenging the popular discourses of charity and gratitude that dominate refugee discourses and narratives in the Global North. The second section of the paper engages in a more direct and detailed discussion about challenges to and possibilities for solidarity between refugees and Indigenous peoples. Articulating historical and contemporary parallels between refugee displacement from land and Indigenous dispossession of land, this section demonstrates that there are nevertheless no guarantees for political solidarity. It argues that potentials for solidarity are contingent on a politics of place, as articulated by Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars; and also possibly on a reconceptualization and reorientation of refugee identity different from the ways it has been constituted in colonial discourses.

Sounding Off

The only traces of Etta Moten Barnett’s 1950s–’60s radio program, I Remember When, exist on well-worn cassette tapes (recently digitized) at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture in Harlem. On these tapes are the only traces of not only Moten Barnett’s own career but also the immense network of activists, educators, and Pan-Africanists with whom she interacted. Many of them are now long forgotten or exist in the footnotes of better-known figures (often their husbands). What could be considered a project of recovery is also a project of tracing the use Black women made of radio broadcasting. I Remember When also provides an intriguing counternarrative to existing scholarship on Cold War radio history, which instead of looking West to East and from the perspective of government propaganda, now traces the networks across the diaspora in the struggle for independence and self-determination. Bringing the focus to Etta Moten Barnett and other Black women in radio raises questions about their stake in citizenship and political solidarity in this period. Through transcribing original broadcast recordings, and reading correspondence and newspaper articles, this paper documents the process of recovery, the cultural connections between women across the African diaspora, and their formation of a global Black community.