The Intimacy of Held Solidarity: A Joint Memoir of Activism

Abstract

This work reflects the slow intimacy of solidarity over time. We uncover some of what we know and have known with examples from anti-apartheid activism and the women’s health movement in South Africa. Solidarity is an expression of knowing trust. Knowing that you are often on each other’s side and leaning towards justice, demanding a relationship of knowing in instances of vulnerability. Being held in solidarity is a gesture of engaging in a shared humanity that at times gives the comfort of familiarity. In spaces where there are shared feminist and political goals and objectives, we assume safety and belonging only to find this is not to be true. Acting in solidarity demands consideration and risk. In moving towards solidarity, one turns one’s body and face towards the other. Solidarity at times demands resistance and speaking truths to power. An engagement of solidarity is conscious and intentional. We reflect engaging with each other over four decades, lessons on listening deeply, hearing seasons of life’s celebrations, joys, questions, and struggles. In this process, questions surface, asking for more on consideration. Our reflection is of collective experiences of slow intimacy, of soft and hard boundaries, remembering and longing as we hold each other in solidarity. We use our individual voices to show specific angles to these collective experiences.