Research in Solidarity?!

What is solidarity and what does it have to do with research? What does solidarity-based research look like and what can it achieve? A discussion impulse with aspects on research ethics, on the relationship between science and responsibility as well as on the concrete implementation.

02.10.2022

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Critique of domination and solidarity vs. generalities of a neoliberalized science?

It is no news and no longer a marginal phenomenon of research critical of domination: A multitude of important and insightful works deal with how ‚we‘ are ever entangled in the existing global, local and in-between entangled relations of domination, violence and standardization; thinking, speaking and acting; as students and researchers, as activists, working in various contexts, in ‚free time‘, worrying and caring.

As a researcher, what do I have to do with power and domination?

They are all united in naming and analyzing these conditions and at the same time integrating their own research work, or the researchers themselves, into this perspective. Different strategies are chosen: As analysis, preface or accompanying commentary, in the use or discussion of terms and concepts, one’s own entanglements and position(s) in the web of domination are revealed or consequences of this analytical grip and knowledge gained through it for practice are discussed.¹

But what is at the beginning of these ‚exercises‘? Or in general: What is ‚at the beginning‘ of research critical of domination? But more (self-)critically, I also ask myself: How do I place these remarks against the background of competition, career planning, self-promotion, topic conjunctures and trends in science? Wiping away (for the time being) these questions about generalities and a neoliberalized science, I not only find that through an analytical involvement of the knowledge-creating subject, the criteria of ‚good‘ scientific work are possibly implemented more consistently, but I also take solidarity as a central motive. The significance of this highly normative concept seems obvious to activists and, for example, also guides the actions of social workers.² For the practical field of humanities and social research³ I would like to take up Paul Mecheril’s important remarks in „Postcommunitarian Solidarity as a Motive of Critical (Migration) Research“ (2014) as an impulse and once again bring the concept of solidarity into sharper analytical and affirmative focus.

Such an explicit reference places the researcher’s involvement not only in social dynamics, but also in his or her own research actions and thinking at the beginning of scientific activity, emphasizes the relationship(s) between the various actors affected by the research, and thus refers not least to the social and political responsibility of science and research.

Solidarity - What, who, how, why?

Historically...

…the term goes back to the Roman legal tradition and, as obligatio in solidum, described a community liability by means of which each⁹ individual was liable for the total debt of a group.¹⁰ From the ancient tradition of friendship as a political, legal and public civic bond, to the biblical tradition of fraternity, to the meaning of fraternité in the context of the French Revolution: as historical semantic references of the concept of solidarity, they described exclusive relationships reserved for privileged men from the elites.⁵ With the industrialization and growing commodification of European societies in the 19th century, traditional community ties began to break down and a „language of solidarity“¹¹ emerged. Not only as a socialist tradition as a result of the workers‘ movement was the concept broadened but also as a general binding of ‚modern‘ national societies based on the division of labor in emerging welfare states. At the same time, however, it continued to be limited to relations between ‚equals‘, either between white¹² , mostly male workers of (the same) European nationality⁵ or fundamentally on the basis of a constructed ‚equal‘, or „shared“¹¹ national identity.

In this historical constellation, the first sociological arguments of August Comte, Émile Durkheim, Léon Bourgeois or Peter Kropotkin emerged, which, however, no longer started from the ’same‘, but precisely from the differences and dependencies between people, which arose as a result of the social division of labor.^{5, 13} Despite Bourgeois‘ and Kropotkin’s explicitly formulated universalist and also ahistorical claim,¹³ they blanked out the relations of oppression and inequality in their many different social categories and global extent and remained exclusive.⁵

While Aden et al. (2021) discuss a solidary research practice in social work in ‚Research as solidary practice?‘ with references to women’s and gender studies as well as flight*migration research, I take a more general perspective. Following a critical, intersectional and – following the anthology ‚InterdepenDenken‘ of the AK ForschungsHandeln (2015) – interdependent approach to the concept of solidarity, I ask why a solidarity-based research practice is needed at all, what it can achieve and what it can look like. In doing so, I establish references to a concrete methodological approach, participatory or participatory activist research, on the one hand, and place my commentary in the negotiations around research ethics and general principles of science as well as its (social, political, moral) responsibility, on the other hand.

Solidarity is a ubiquitous and at the same time indeterminate term; it is accordingly contested,⁴ normatively charged or discharged by arbitrariness. In order to approach its meaning(s), I distinguish, following Sebastian Garbe (2022) or Jared Holley (2021), for instance, between

⁵

Conceptually...

… there have been many attempts since then to formulate general or minimal definitions, which vary greatly depending on the focus and the question. While Serhat Karakayalı (2013: 21), for example, consistently understands solidarity as „a principled – if not always de facto – mutual advocacy of individuals and collectives, in material, political, or social terms, which is also intended to counteract the isolation or atomization of individuals in modernity,“ Avery Kolers (2016: 5) defines it as „political action on other’s terms.“ Kurt Bayertz (1998: 15-48) further elaborates four contexts of meaning of solidarity, thus distinguishing between (a) a moral and universal idea, (b) the bonds between members of a society, citizens of a state, members of a nation, (c) its special form, civic, or state obligations and care in terms of the national welfare state, and (d) the so-called „combat solidarity“ with those who stand up for their rights.
What these attempts at definition and demarcation have in common is that they conceive of solidarity as a reciprocal connection, bond, relationship between individuals and collectives with a specific normative content.¹⁰ What is disputed, on the one hand, is what characterizes this relationship in itself: Is solidarity a norm, a (social) structure, a type of action (following Karakayalı (2021: 159): „Solidarity is not a norm, a structure or a type of action.“), a motive (Mecheril 2014)? Or a way of relating? Second, we then ask about its characteristics and conditions: Who is, or acts in solidarity with whom, on what basis, by what means, and for what end? Is it universal or particular, voluntary or binding, unilateral or reciprocal, based on shared experiences, identities, beliefs or actions?^{5, 11, 21}

Although the concept of solidarity remains Eurocentric even in the critical interventions,⁵ some aspects can be worked out on the basis of the controversies and critical debates with which we can approach for the moment a decidedly emancipatory, interdependent, intersectional and thus more differentiated understanding of solidarity:

Solidarity can then describe an attempt,
– to establish reciprocal relations „between persons, groups, struggles, etc.“ through and across inequality(ies), in and through which
– acting in an emancipatory sense – for ‚less inequality and oppression‘, for ‚a good life for all‘, against existing relations of domination,
– and differences and commonalities in those relations, in the solidarity relations themselves and in relation to their action are questioned.

The above announced criteria...

…which were formulated following these questions and the fading out of (global) relations of inequality, deal in particular with the conditions, possibilities and limits of solidarity in asymmetrical relations.
Thus, while solidarity was initially understood as a relationship among equals, in sameness, or in community, insofar as it was linked to the similarity of the social conditions and positions of the subjects involved,^{14, 6, 4, 20} critical approaches¹⁵ direct their gaze to a solidarity in, through, and across „differences“^{5, 13}

It was especially Black feminists such as bell hooks, Angela Davis and Audre Lorde as well as decolonial feminist theorists from the so-called ‚global South‘¹⁶ such as Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak and Chandra Talpade Mohanty who, since the 1980s, criticized that the overt part of the women’s movement with its self-conception of a universal, solidary sisterhood, bypasses relations of inequality and thereby solidifies and produces racist and heterosexist exclusions in particular.^{17, 18} The question arose, or rather arises, as to how a solidarity in differences can be conceived and practiced.

As an example, Mohanty (2003a) defines solidarity:

in terms of mutuality, accountability, and the recognition of common interests as the basis for relationships among diverse communities. Rather than assuming an enforced commonality of oppression, the practice of solidarity foregrounds communities of people who have chosen to work and fight together. Diversity and difference are central values here – to be acknowledged and respected, not erased in the building of alliances. […] [S]olidarity is always an achievement, the result of active struggle to construct the universal on the basis of particulars/differences.

“Common differences“²¹ mediate between situational uniqueness and global conditions, which first have to be recognized and thus consciously created. They are based on the fact that all subjects are woven into the existing global relations of domination and inequality and are affected by them – albeit in different ways. Critical impulses such as this one not only expose ignorance and voids associated with the understandings of solidarity outlined earlier. By placing the existing relations of inequality and oppression at the beginning of their analysis, they also point to the emancipatory quality of relations of solidarity.

Research in Solidarity

Why and to what extent can the transfer of such a concept to the practical field of research benefit us? Or more affirmatively: Why and how can such a concept of solidarity as a condition of research benefit us?

The knowledge-creating subject, especially its epistemic interest, and the knowledge created do not stand loosely and ’neutrally‘ in the world, but are, on the contrary, embedded in global social structures, dynamics and modes of action. As Paul Mecheril writes in continuation of the discussions about the „crisis of representation“ in science, „[t]he production of knowledge […] thus has its place, it is bound.“ ⁶ A solidarity-based research practice recognizes these entanglements and can make them precisely and reliably comprehensible in the sense of scientificity, not least in order to analytically condense the process of cognition and the created knowledge itself.

However, solidarity-based research cannot and must not be confused with the assumption that one’s own research results will bring about ‚change‘ or ‚more emancipatory conditions‘. As Abdelkader et al. (2021) problematize, I can neither control who the published research results inform and with what consequences, nor to what extent they possibly influence social structures and dynamics, nor can and may I control cognitive processes in order to achieve or avoid a certain effect. In contrast, a research practice based on solidarity does not focus on the outcome of research, but rather on its beginning, process, and modes of relationship, as well as on the fundamental and also research-ethical responsibility for one’s own actions. If I place myself and my own research actions in relation to others, questions of mutual and general social responsibility immediately arise. These negotiations with the „moral presuppositions and consequences“⁶ flow in turn into my choice of a research topic as well as an epistemological question and move the conditions of my research relationships. Mecheril further writes in this regard:

Within the framework of the approach of solidarity science, solidarity does not serve as a regulative principle of research in the sense that the solidarity of the scientists with the concrete actors of the social fields being studied guides and structures the research process. The autonomy of scientific activity is not surrendered through the motif of scientific solidarity; rather, the motif mobilizes questions, investigations, and studies that are directed toward gaining knowledge and are judged by the kind of knowledge gained.
Mecheril (2014:79)

A solidarity-based research practice begins with the analytically reflexive integration of knowledge and its production into social relations – without losing itself in self-referentiality – and points to the responsibility of research for these. Thus, it can sensitize for the modes of action of knowledge and science and for the necessity of the above described practices of research critical of domination and its analysis of certain objects of investigation. As a morally oriented understanding as well as practice of science, solidarity-based research in this respect directly takes up the research ethical principles and scientific standards regarding a concrete and general responsibility of research, the boundedness of knowledge and science, and the avoidance or reduction of individual as well as collective harm, as formulated by various research societies and bodies (e.g., German Research Foundation (2019), Council for Social and Economic Data (2017)). The German Society for Social Work (2020) goes a step further in this regard, stating something like the following with regard to self-reflection and participation:

Self-reflection with regard to one’s own role in research, one’s own interests, possible biases and dependencies is just as much an essential part of scientific practice as the exchange with colleagues about approaches, findings, research-practical and -ethical questions and dilemmas. (2.)
Social work research should involve research participants in research processes as far as possible and in an appropriate way and carefully reflect the limits of participation. (3.2)

Self-reflection with regard to one’s own role in research, one’s own interests, possible biases and dependencies is just as much an essential part of scientific practice as the exchange with colleagues about approaches, findings, research-practical and -ethical questions and dilemmas. (2.) Social work research should involve research participants in research processes as far as possible and in an appropriate way and carefully reflect the limits of participation. (3.2)

Example: Participatory research

A concept of solidarity that includes and presupposes a self-reflexivity and the relations of the researchers not only to the ‚research object‘, but also to further, indirectly involved collectives, connects to these research-ethical guidelines and also to the strategies and method(olog)ic procedures in research critical of domination mentioned at the beginning.
While solidarity-based research can be method(olog)ically translated into diverse research designs – whether quantitative surveys, qualitative interview or discourse research – I would like to highlight one approach as an example: In participatory or also participatory, activist research, the critical-reflexive moment, the own research action and the relationship of the involved research actors are already in the center.

This „research style“ (Bergold and Thomas 2012: para. 2) summarizes a broad spectrum of strategies, such as action research, community-based participatory research, or participatory action research (PAR). They all share a general critique of society as well as the aspiration to change social reality with their own research and knowledge production.^{7, 8} The authors Carstensen et al. (2014) point to two interdependent levels on which participatory, activist research operates:
On the epistemic level, it is important to challenge powerful representations, such as when highly qualified academics claim universalizing and homogenizing interpretive sovereignty over categories and thus hegemonize certain particular views. On the interpersonal level, the conditions under which researchers and research subjects interact need to be reflected upon (258, emphasis in original).
Participatory research focuses on the participation of the researched subjects who ideally decide and participate in all research phases.^{8, 19} Action research, on the other hand, emphasizes the direct and concrete interaction or intervention of research in practice and social conditions.^{7, 8}

A participatory, activist research style consequently results from the confrontations with the here problematized entanglements of research and ‚practices‘ a solidary research strategy to confront and analytically integrate the relations of inequality.
Researching in solidarity means acknowledging one’s own entanglements and relationships to the subjects and broader collectives involved and questioning the research process already during, or before, the staking out of the epistemological interest and the questioning with regard to the conditions as formulated in the above approach to a concept of solidarity:

Solidarity as a starting point motivates the investigation of (migration-social) contexts in which, for example, forms of post-communitarian solidarity are possible and promoted, examines conditions of these forms, asks about the enabling conditions of a commitment to social relations for which the relationship type of solidarity is characteristic, asks about the conditions of the emergence and the possibilities of change of such relations in which the social cooperation partners who are respectively foreign and familiar to me-cannot unfold and develop.

(Mecheril 2014: 90)

Solidarity as a starting point motivates the investigation of (migration-social) contexts in which, for example, forms of post-communitarian solidarity are possible and promoted, examines conditions of these forms, asks about the enabling conditions of a commitment to social relations for which the relationship type of solidarity is characteristic, asks about the conditions of the emergence and the possibilities of change of such relations in which the social cooperation partners who are respectively foreign and familiar to me-cannot unfold and develop.
(Mecheril 2014: 90)

In this way, it can not only provide answers to research-ethical principles and requirements for social responsibility and social as well as political binding of research but also scientifically condense or further develop the processes of knowledge.

Author:
Miriam Bach

Sources

The volume ‚InterdepenDenken‘ of the AK ForschungsHandeln (2015) collects a variety of different approaches and strategies.
I.a. Castro Varela 2018; Gahleitner et al. 2021.
In a further step, it would be exciting and important to extend the ideas formulated here to the field of natural sciences as well.
Karakayali, S. (2013): Kosmopolitische Solidarität. APuZ. Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte, 63 (13-14), pp. 21–26.
Garbe, S. (2022) Weaving Solidarity. Decolonial Perspectives on Transnational Advocacy of and with the Mapuche. Bielefeld: transcript.
Mecheril, P. (2014) Postkommunitäre Solidarität als Motiv kritischer (Migrations-)Forschung. In: Broden, A. & Mecheril, P. (Hrsg.), Solidarität in der Migrationsgesellschaft. Befragung einer normativen Grundlage. Bielefeld: transcript, pp. 73–92.
Carstensen, A. L., Heimeshoff, L.-M., Jungehülsing, J., Kirchhoff, M. & Trzeciak, M. (kritnet-Gruppe Kassel) (2014) Forschende Aktivist_innen und aktivistische Forscher_innen: eine Hinleitung. In: Heimeshoff, L.-M., Hess, S., Kron, S., Schwenken, H. & Trzeciak, M. (Hrsg.), Grenzre-gime II. Migration, Kontrolle, Wissen. Transnationale Perspektiven. Berlin/Hamburg: Assoziation A, pp. 257–268.
Prasad, N. (2020) (Feministische) partizipatorische Aktionsforschung. In: Brenssell, A. & Lutz-Kluge, A. (Hrsg.), Partizipative Forschung und Gender. Emanzipatorische Forschungsansätze weiterdenken. Opladen/Berlin/Toronto: Barbara Budrich, pp. 19–33.
Inasmuch as the historical political and social contexts depicted here largely marginalized women in public space, I use only the masculine form of the word.
Bayertz, K. (1998) Begriff und Problem der Solidarität. In: Bayertz, K. (Hrsg.), Solidarität. Begriff und Problem. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp, pp. 11–53.
Sangiovanni, A. (2015) Solidarity as Joint Action. Journal of Applied Philosophy, 32 (4), pp. 340–359.
By using the capital notation of „Black“ and italicizing „white,“ I want to point out, on the one hand, the social construct character and the positions associated with it in existing relations of domination, and, on the other hand, to [delineate] the category white „from the level of meaning of Black resistance potential that has been inscribed on this category by Blacks and People of Color“ (Eggers et al. 2009: 13). In doing so, I connect to the (self-)naming practices of activists and critical whiteness studies (cf. Sow 2015).
Kastner, J. & Susemichel, L. (2021) Einleitung. In: Kastner, J. & Susemichel, L. (Hrsg.) Unbedingte Solidarität. Münster: UNRAST, pp. 10–19.
Brunkhorst, H. (1997) Solidarität unter Fremden. Frankfurt am Main: Fischer Taschenbuch.
Garbe (2022) offers a diverse as well as comprehensive listing and discussion of this:
Authors like Sara Ahmed, Linda Alcoff, George Yancy, Gada Mahrouse, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor in critical race studies; Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Ulrike Hamann, Serhat Karakayalı, Daniel Bendix, Kwesi Aikins, and Rosine Kelz in critical migration studies; as well as Encarnación Gutiérrez Rodríguez, Clare Land, bell hooks, Nira Yuval-Davis, Chandra Talpade Mohanty, Enrique Dussel, and Glen Sean Coulthard in decolonial and feminist studies—explicitly or not—contribute to finding moral, social, and political grounds for relations of solidarity across and beyond differences. (43).
The term ‚Global South‘, like its counterpart, the ‚Global North‘, does not refer to the geographical location of a society, a country or a region, but tries to show that it is also about social, political, economic as well as scientific disadvantages or privileges in a global, postcolonial order. At the same time, even this pair of terms cannot prevent generalizations, homogenizations, and also the same entrenchment of hierarchies (for an introduction to the discussion of terms, e.g. Hollington, Salverda, Schwarz & Tappe, 2015).
Mohanty, C. T. (2003a) Feminism without Borders. Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham/London: Duke University Press.
Mohanty, C. T. (2003b) „Under Western Eyes“ Revisited: Feminist Solidarity through Anticapitalist Struggles. In: Mohanty, C. T., Feminism without Borders. Decolonizing Theory, Practicing Solidarity. Durham/London: Duke University Press, pp. 221–251.
von Unger, H. (2014) Partizipative Forschung. Einführung in die Forschungspraxis. Wiesbaden: Springer VS.
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Jared, H. (2021) Recovering the Anticolonial Roots of Solidarity. SCRIPTS Working Paper No. 11. Berlin: Cluster of Excellence 2055 „Contesta-tions of the Liberal Script – SCRIPTS”. https://www.scripts-berlin.eu/publications/working-paper-series/Working-Paper-11-2021/SCRIPTS_Working_Paper_11_WEB.pdf. Accessed: 23.03.2022.

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