Associative Solidarity, Relational Goods, and Autonomy for Refugees: What Does it Mean to Stand in Solidarity with Refugees?

Abstract

Solidarity is a concept that has been applied only sparsely in the discussion of cosmopolitan justice so far.1 1 Exceptions include Gould, C., “Transnational Solidarity,” Journal of Social Philosophy 38, no. 1 (2007b): 148–164; and Gould, C., Globalizing Democracy and Human Rights (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004); Straehle, C., “National and Cosmopolitan Solidarity,” Contemporary Political Theory 9, no. 1 (2010): 110–120. If it is applied to the cosmopolitan sphere, then it has been mostly understood as “as a relationship among individuals or among groups or associations. In this use, people are understood as potentially feeling solidarity with the suffering of others or as standing with them in their struggles.”2 2 Gould, C., “Recognition, Empathy and Solidarity,” in Socialité et reconnaissance. Grammaire de l'humain, ed. G. Bertram, R. Celikates, C. Laudou and D. Lauer (Paris: Edition de l'Haramattan, 2007), 248. The concept of solidarity has also not seen much attention in the discussion of migration justice, both immigration and emigration. Yet thinking about refugees and thinking about solidarity allows to link the international and the domestic debates since asylum-seekers who ask for refuge transcend the international—national divide. Refugees, in other words, are an excellent test case to evaluate different conceptions of solidarity in political philosophy. In this paper, I want to do two things: first, I want to investigate what account of solidarity can plausibly explain any obligations toward refugees. In liberal-egalitarian writing, solidarity has often been motivated to support the social welfare state—it becomes then one of the necessities of that state.3 3 Miller, D., Solidarity and its Sources. The Strains of Committment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies (2017). K. Banting and W. Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Miller, D., National Identity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995). I will juxtapose the definition of solidarity as social solidarity supported by David Miller, for instance, to that of political solidarity. This conceptualization has recently been proposed by Avery Kolers.4 4 Kolers, A., A Moral Theory of Solidarity (New York: Oxford University Press, 2016). In Miller's view, the notion of a “duty of solidarity” refers to the particularistic duties that flow from what is shared, namely a national identity and common belonging to a group. Kolers, starts from the premise that linguistically, a duty of solidarity could also refer to the duty to engage in practices that create what is shared, that create the community among which solidarity can be demanded. To “stand in solidarity” is then the willingness to engage in certain practices of sharing or defining a solidaristic community. I argue that neither of these accounts of social and political solidarity quite captures the concept of solidarity. One of the important dimensions of the promise of asylum is the idea of providing for conditions of agency and autonomy among refugees. Thus, my starting point is the premise that all human beings have a basic need to stand in particularistic relationships with others, for their autonomy-based needs to be met. I then apply this understanding of solidarity to the case of refugees. The promise of refuge and asylum is not simply to provide shelter and protection against human rights violations, but also to provide those who ask for refuge with a new home and the basis of social membership. Agency and autonomy in the forms I construe them here demand that social needs are met. If these needs go unmet, I argue that the promise of asylum remains unfulfilled. I explain that social needs can be met in two different ways: first, through the (much discussed) aspect of social recognition within society; and second, through providing for the sources of self-respect within society. Assessing political solidarity from this perspective, I show that it provides a picture in which the particular is largely absent. Political solidarity in Kolers' account defines a general duty to provide people with what is needed for autonomy. Yet, what people need is a space of particular relationships in which the autonomous life can be built. I explain that political solidarity neglects the need for social relationships. In this respect, conceptualizing solidarity as a duty neglects the constructivist principle that we need to think about the particular person and their need when analyzing what moral equality requires. Put differently, political solidarity seemingly neglects the social context in which individuals are treated as equals. One way of treating individuals with equal respect is to assure that all have access to the means of self-respect. In contrast, when Miller speaks of a duty of solidarity, he provides a picture in which the particular forms the limit of the realm of our duties of solidarity. The people with whom we stand in solidarity are the only people to whom we have normative duties—apart from very thin humanitarian duties toward outsiders, as I will explain. Instead, I argue that we need an account of solidarity that neither ignores the need for particular relational spaces; nor makes the presence of those relationships the limit of our obligation. I call this associative solidarity.5 5 Particular thanks to one anonymous reviewer, who suggested this term. In part two of the paper, I examine what specifically the account of associative solidarity would demand. Many calls for solidarity with refugees seem to lack a prescription of what solidarity with refugees would provide for individual persons. My proposal of associative solidarity aims to address this lack. I suggest that refuge is the most appropriate site for a duty of solidarity, since refugees are by definition the most vulnerable to the annihilation of the social—they are persecuted by their states of origin, stripped of their social, political and civic rights and lack the protection of a state. We, therefore, have an obligation to stand in solidarity with individuals having suffered this loss, by creating particularistic bonds with them to meet their social needs. I argue that solidarity with refugees is a universal obligation of justice, namely to build what is particular. I end with an example to illustrate the content of a duty of solidarity toward refugees. The Canadian Refugee sponsorship regime implies that each refugee has a group of individuals or a family involved and preoccupied with their successful integration into the social fabric. Sponsors “provide financial support and settlement assistance for the refugees they sponsor, usually for one year after arrival.”6 6 See http://ccrweb.ca/en/private-sponsorship-refugees. The most immediate advantage of the system is that refugees have a social network upon arrival in the host society. They have a group of people who feel responsible for them, who share the task of finding housing, entertaining and introducing them to the ways of their new society, finding clothing and employment. As I will explain, the program illustrates what may constitute solidarity with refugees in light of the need to distribute access to relational goods fairly, and in light of the promise of asylum that includes providing access to the means of individual autonomy and agency. The relationship between refugees and members of the asylum-granting state needs to be thicker than either social or political accounts of solidarity can justify, or so I argue.7 7 I borrow this formulation from the helpful comments I received by one anonymous reviewer for this journal, to which I am much indebted for helping me clarify my argument. A well-known account of the basis and requirements of social solidarity or solidarity within society8 8 From here on, I will use “social solidarity” and “solidarity within society” interchangeably. This seems justified in the context of this paper, in which I assess what it means to stand in solidarity with refugees within host societies. As will become clear shortly, I do not agree with many of the premises those writing in the social solidarity tradition hold. This does not imply, however, that I deny their concern for social solidarity as an important means to realize social justice goods. has been proposed by David Miller who considers it necessarily embedded in ideas about national identity and definitions of citizenship. Miller's account of social solidarity is motivated by the worry that states need to have the necessary social conditions in place to support redistributive policies within the context of the welfare state. Call this the social solidarity caveat. Social solidarity is putatively tied to the fact that individuals identify with their community, a feeling only plausible within the context of a shared national identity. Miller thus cautions that we should be wary of adopting immigration policies that may change the makeup of our community for fear of what might happen to feelings of social solidarity.9 9 Miller, D., Strangers in Our Midst – The Political Philosophy of Immigration (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2016, especially chapter 8). In fact, while Miller first writes about a nationality's power to “increase” people's sense of solidarity,10 10 Miller (1995, at 36). he soon sheds his reserve and writes that “among large aggregates of people, only a common nationality can provide the sense of solidarity that make [democracy and social justice] possible”.11 11 Miller (1995, at 98, my emphasis). Much state activity involves the furthering of goals, which cannot be achieved without the voluntary co-operation of citizens. For this activity to be successful the citizens must trust the state, and they must trust one another to comply with what the state demands of them. […] Since adhering to the rules the state proposes will usually have costs, each person must be confident that the others will generally comply—and this involves mutual trust.12 12 Miller (1995, at 90f). From the perspective of the host society, cultural integration matters because it allows immigrants to identify with that society more fully and to adopt its national identity as their own. Certainly that identity must adapt to acknowledge their presence. […] But a shared national identity is a resource that can allow a society to solve collective action problems, pursue policies of social justice, and function more effectively as a democracy.13 13 Miller (2016, at 145). To be fair, Miller accepts that the shape and form a national identity takes is malleable. This is to say that national identity is built on civic principles that can include and integrate newcomers, and signal to them that they are now part of those who shape and form the nation. The community Miller has in mind, in other words, is not preestablished. However, my critique remains valid—which is to say that Miller's conception of solidarity still assumes that the community has to be given first, before we can foster feelings of solidarity. This is to say that we do not establish a community through acts of solidarity but we share solidarity because of our sense community. Following this interpretation, then, solidarity within society is a by-product of a history of collective interaction, of a collective memory, or of active integration into a preexisting collective. Social solidarity emanates from previously established groups, such as a nation, based on fellow feelings and possibly shared goals.14 14 See Sangiovanni, A., “Solidarity as Joint Action,” Journal of Applied Philosophy 32, no. 4 (2015): 340–359. In Miller's recent discussion of what we owe to strangers, he reiterates arguments for partiality that should guide our concern for fellow citizens, and which contrast with obligations toward strangers. We owe fellow citizens particularist duties of community, whereas we owe strangers reasons for our actions.15 15 Miller (2016, chapter 2). Miller's use of the social solidarity caveat makes two different claims that are worth separating in the context of my argument here. The first is that feelings of community are at the basis for solidaristic action. The second claim worth distinguishing is that social solidarity is instrumental for social justice. These two claims are different in nature and scope and, in fact, are not as interdependent as Miller suggests.16 16 I call the second one Miller's instrumental claim about social solidarity, which he has restated recently (see Miller 2017). See also a forceful critique in the same volume (Levy, 2017). Against Fraternity, The Strains of Commitment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. K. Banting and W. Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press). Here, I will criticize the first of these, which I take to be a claim about the nature of solidarity. Now, one could object that there is simply a “purely verbal dispute” between Miller's position and my own here.17 17 Thanks are due again to one of the anonymous reviewers to push me on this point, and for the reference to David Chalmer's idea of a ‘purely verbal dispute’. Miller could concede that we owe duties of solidarity to outsiders, while maintaining that we have a specific set of particularist duties toward fellow nationals. I have discussed and criticized Miller's position on this elsewhere.18 18 Straehle, C., Justified State Partiality and the Vulnerable Subject in Migration. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy, 20 no. 6 (2017): 736–744. What is important for my argument here is that Miller does not conceive of solidaristic obligations toward outsiders as duties. Instead, our duties toward outsiders are based on their needs, but they are not duties of solidarity. To put this differently, we may say, linguistically, that we feel solidarity with some outside group, implying feelings of empathy, fellow feeling, and the desire to help, yet such feelings are not identical to solidarity within a group, which is reciprocal and generates duties.19 19 Miller, D. (2017). Solidarity and its Sources. The Strains of Committment: The Political Sources of Solidarity in Diverse Societies. K. Banting and W. Kymlicka (Oxford: Oxford University Press). In contrast to Miller's account of solidarity as flowing from a given community, Avery Kolers suggests that solidarity defines the community to which we have obligations. This is important since it allows for more flexible boundaries of the solidaristic group. Kolers defines his account of solidarity as “political action on others' terms.”20 20 Kolers (2016, at 5). Thus, “solidarity-given obligations are individual obligations to constitute the collective in pursuit of something else.”21 21 Kolers (2016, 45; emphasis in original). Solidarity is the constitutive factor for a group, not based on a group. A second distinguishing feature of Kolers' account is the stance of deference that those who act in solidarity have to adopt: “the agent in solidarity is disposed to defer […] about what is to be done, how and why”22 22 Kolers (2016, 50). to those with whom she stands in solidarity. To stand in solidarity does then not imply that we need to identify with the course of action chosen and adopted by others. In contrast to Miller's conception of social solidarity, according to which solidarity solves problems of collective action, a political conception of solidarity does not require that we agree on how to realize social justice. Instead, the political concept of solidarity reminds us that those whose terms we adopt ought to determine what kind of action we ought to choose. To illustrate, Kolers proposes the example of Rosa Parks who was asked to vacate her seat on the bus for a white passenger. If a well-meaning fellow passenger wants to be in solidarity with Parks but her interventions risk putting Parks into danger or harm's way, the fellow passenger ought to defer to Parks' guidance on how to oppose oppression. This is how we ought to understand solidarity as political action on other's terms. One might object here, though, that a sense of deference cannot be unlimited if it is not to jeopardize solidarity.23 23 As indeed, one anonymous reviewer has done. My comments here are a reply to this important reflection. This is to say that if I were to defer without ever agreeing with a course of action, it is not clear what form my solidarity can take. However, I do not believe that deference is necessarily problematic unless we have a particular idea what solidaristic action looks like. Most minimally, I can donate money to a campaign to save trees in my neighbourhood, even if I do not agree with the strategy of chaining myself to specific trees. Put differently, deference does not question endorsement of the cause and different actions can count as acts of solidarity.24 24 This is not to say that the range of plausible acts of solidarity is unlimited, of course. “[t]the concept of solidarity is related to empathy … in that solidarity suggests a standing with others and a readiness to act with them, based on a certain emphatic understanding of the social situation of these others and a shared perspective with them.”28 28 Gould (2007a, 252). Kolers, moreover, wants to argue for a duty-based concept of solidarity. In this Kantian vein, duties of solidarity are owed in order to prevent others from coming to harm, not because individuals are emotionally invested in the well-being of others generally, or a specific group of others particularly. To put this otherwise, the Kantian duty of solidarity that Kolers describes defines with whom we should stand in solidarity.29 29 Thanks to Luke Ulas for this poignant formulation. An example may illustrate what Kolers has in mind. Imagine that our reason to be in solidarity is that we want to defend the interests of those who lack equal access to opportunities. According to Kolers' account, the group with whom we stand in solidarity may change depending on who we believe to lack access to equal opportunities, and presumably whether or not these opportunities are defined socially or globally. So for example, we could say that we are in solidarity with low-skilled workers in our community because we believe that they lack access to equal opportunities in an economy that prices and rewards professional skills, and that considers so called low-skilled workers as dispensable.30 30 See Garreau, M. and C. Laborde, "Relational Equality, Non-Domination, and Vulnerability," in Social Equality: On What It Means To Be Equals, ed. C. Fourie, F. Schuppert and I. Wallimann-Helmer (New York: Oxford University Press, 2015). Garreau and Laborde explore what effects social marginalization and disqualification have on individuals, and how to address them. The point I wish to make here is that we can very easily imagine how being low-skilled will lead to a lack of self-respect, thus affecting access to the means of individual autonomy. I explain the link just below, but see also Benson, P. H. (2015). Stereotype Threat, Social Belonging and Relational Autonomy. Personal Autonomy and Social Oppression. M Oshana. (New York: Routledge). Yet when confronted with global contexts of lack of access to fair equality of opportunity, we may decide to direct our political action towards the globally disadvantaged, such as refugees, rather than the locally disadvantaged. “[T]he referent of oppressed shifts and [reason] r shifts with it.”31 31 Kolers (2016, 51). I consider refugees as among the disadvantaged of the world in the sense that they have lost the protection of their human rights through their state. As one reviewer has pointed out, refugees are not necessarily the most disadvantaged socioeconomically since others, such as the poorest of the world, may lack important basic human rights protection that make their survival difficult. I agree that disadvantage comes in many different forms. What unites all forms of disadvantage as a relational category, however, is the fact that the disadvantaged suffer a particular ill: the way I construe it here, disadvantage means that one cannot imagine a future. The reasons for this may be varied, either because of lack of home, or because of lack of sustenance or access to other human rights. See de-Shalit, A. and Wolff, J., Disadvantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). This is plausible if we accept that standing in solidarity, while being a perfect duty in Kolers' Kantian account, does not determine the object of the duty, but only the content of the duty. The content of the duty arises from the reasons for it: “Solidarity with those who suffer inequity constitutes equitable treatment of them.”32 32 Kolers (2016, 8, emphasis in original). So while in the first instance, we could think that Miller and Kolers' accounts build upon each other—that Miller describes the community from which feelings of solidarity flow, while Kolers describes the content of the obligations of solidarity, including a sense of deference— Kolers' stipulation of solidarity as agent-neutral is indeed a critique of the community-based account of Miller's concept of solidarity. Yet some could argue that there is a kind of lexical ordering of duties of solidarity: Miller's duties of social solidarity are then acceptable if they do not conflict with the kind of duties of solidarity that Kolers describes. As I discussed above, however, duties of social solidarity often conflict with duties toward strangers—and Miller does not accept the primacy of duties toward strangers as duties of solidarity over duties towards fellow nationals.33 33 See Miller, D. (2013) Justice for Earthlings Oxford, Oxford University Press and Straehle, C. (2016). Falling into the Justice Gap? Between duties of social and global justice. Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy. 19 (6), 645-661. Kolers' account raises several questions for the case of refugees. Most importantly, the link between solidarity and a Kantian idea of equity and moral respect raises the question why we would need the concept of solidarity in the first place. Unless we understand solidarity simply as the vehicle through which we express our respect and moral concern for the welfare of refugees, it is not clear why solidarity with refugees is important. Put differently, the account here begs the question what moral work the concept of solidarity as political solidarity can plausibly achieve. Rather than being called upon to stand in solidarity, could we not say that we are called upon to respect the equal moral value of all human beings, and that we ought to act in accordance with the duty that flows from this value? Put otherwise, what does solidarity bring to the analysis? So far, I have juxtaposed Miller's account of social solidarity with Koler's account of political solidarity. I have criticized Miller for his reliance on fellow feeling or particularist social relations as grounds of solidarity, and have sided with Kolers who argues for an account of solidarity based on reasons and need. However, as I said just now, the political conception of solidarity seems to beg the question what solidarity is for. This, I suggest is the first troubling aspect of Kolers' account. A second problem with political solidarity is that it neglects an important aspect of what it means to show equal moral respect to all in a Kantian sense. I want to argue that the social aspect of solidarity needs to be brought back in to give individuals their moral due. Taking the case of refugees, solidarity with refugees then means to focus and address social deprivation and denial of community membership that refugees suffer. To defend this claim, consider the social conditions of individual autonomy and agency as important parts of an individual life well lived. Increasingly, the literature on migration and refuge accepts that promoting individual agency and autonomy among migrants more generally, but refugees in particular, ought to be an important goal of theorizing migration, and an important goal of asylum policy.34 34 Straehle, C. (2019) Asylum, Refuge and Justice in Health, Hastings Centre Report, 49 (3) May – June. In the first instance, this discussion is part of the definition of what the promise of asylum entails. I stipulate that the promise of asylum includes the provision of a new home, the protection of human rights and access to social membership. Refugees of human rights abuses are looking for another state to temporarily or permanently assume the duty to protect their human rights and, over time, to provide them with access to the full range of social, civic and political rights.35 35 Price, A. (2009) Rethinking Asylum. (Oxford : Oxford University Press) Why is membership important? Membership confers status as an equal, it confers the possibility to access the conditions of autonomy within the country of asylum. Yet this promise seems to get short shrift in the current system. This warrants exploration. “The imagined needs of refugees have been reduced to two basics—food and shelter—and it has become assumed that the most viable way to provide such rights is through camps. It was not meant to be this way. Refugee-intake strategies were originally intended to promote access to autonomy, with particular focus on the right to work and freedom of movement.”36 36 The Guardian, March 22, 2017. “[A] legal regime which is in truth fundamentally oriented to the promotion of autonomy of refugees has been ‘pathologized’ to focus instead on finding cures for refugeehood. A regime which was actually established to guarantee refugees lives in dignity until and unless either the cause of their flight is firmly eradicated or the refugee himself or herself chooses to pursue some alternative solution to their disenfranchisement has now become a regime which labours single-mindedly to design and implement top-down solutions which ‘fix the refugee problem’. […] But refugee protection … is not primarily about looking for solutions. Refugee protection is instead fundamentally oriented to creating conditions of independence and dignity, which enable refugees themselves to decide how they wish to cope with predicaments. It is about ensuring autonomy, not about the pursuit of externally conceived ‘fixes’.”37 37 Hathaway, J., “Refugee Solutions or Solutions to Refugeehood?” Refuge: Canada's Journal on Refugees 24, no. 2 (2007): 1–10, at 3–4; emphasis in original. Available at https://refuge.journals.yorku.ca/index.php/refuge/article/view/21378 Both Collier and Betts, and Hathaway thus point to the original value guiding refugee protection, namely to provide for the conditions of autonomy for those who have been persecuted in their home countries, who have had their human rights violated and who are seeking a new home. In this view, the original goal of protection was to enable conditions of autonomy, to restore as much as possible the conditions to allow individuals to lead the kind of lives they hope to lead. One way of characterizing the kind of moral respect that Kolers demands is to say that we need to provide aslum-seekers with a new home and access to membership in their new home. Note that I do not wish to imply that some refugees may not hope to return to their countries of origin over time. And indeed, the right to return may be another important way to foster individual autonomy as I have argued elsewhere.38 38 Straehle, C. "Refugees and the Right to Return," in The Political Philosophy of Refuge ed. D. Miller and C. Straehle. (Cambridge; Cambridge University Press, 2019). I simply wish to suggest that social membership in the country of asylum in cases where the option of membership in the country of origin is barred or not viable is an important background condition of individual autonomy. We may mobilize many reasons to sustain this claim—the one I want to focus on here i