Collective Solidarity Research Articles

Made in South Asia: Centering Labor in Textile and Garment Manufacturing Work, 1970s to 2020s

Abstract Labor in the textile and garment industry is at the heart of a series of recent books on South Asia. Together these books document the different scales at which textile and garment work has been structured and restructured over the last century, and its implications for workers, their health as well as collective solidarity. Across the countries of Bangladesh, India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka, the industry developed and declined in vastly different temporalities and rhythms. Yet, as these works reveal, workers have often been confronted with similar challenges brought on by the boom-and-bust cycles of industrial development. In each case, textile and garment workers have been forced to navigate transitions to premature deindustrialization, closure, or national/transnational industrial policy changes. The books center workers and their long “post”-industrial or industrial “afterlives,” as they cope with the dramatic changes in the global manufacturing of textile and garment.

Social Cohesion in Different Periods of the Pandemic: What Works in Reducing COVID-19 Mortality

Abstract Background Inconsistent results were reported regarding the effects of social cohesion dimensions on COVID-19 mortality rate (MR). Most studies have indicated that trust in civil services, but not participating in social activities, reduces COVID-19 MR, possibly because of the highly contagious nature of this disease. In this study, we investigated how the effects of various dimensions of social cohesion on COVID-19 MR vary across different phases of the pandemic. Methods This longitudinal study was conducted using data from 86 countries that participated in the 2017-2020 World Values Survey. The measures of social cohesion were identified by aggregating survey responses to the country level. COVID-19 MR was calculated-using data from the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control-separately for three distinct periods during the pandemic (January 2021-June 2022). A factor analysis was conducted to identify the dimensions of social cohesion, and negative binomial regression models were constructed to analyze data for each period. Results The factor analysis revealed three dimensions of social cohesion: social participation and inclusion, health service equality, and trust in civil services and democracy. Our findings suggest that each dimension of social cohesion uniquely affected COVID-19 outcomes in different periods of the pandemic. Trust in civil services and a positive attitude toward democracy are strongly associated with a low COVID-19 MR. However, this association was observed only in the early and middle stages of the pandemic. By contrast, our study demonstrated that in the late stage of the pandemic, increased social participation and inclusion helped combat COVID-19. Conclusions This study underscores the importance of collective cohesion and solidarity in mobilizing public responses against pandemic situations. This study emphasizes that preventive or regulatory interventions should be tailored to different phases of a pandemic. Key messages • COVID-19 mortality rate was negatively associated with trust in civil services during the early two periods and with social participation and social inclusion during the late period of the pandemic. • This study emphasizes that preventive or regulatory interventions should be tailored to different phases of a pandemic.

Occupational therapists speaking for justice and human rights: From complicit silencing to collective resistance

We are a Collective of occupational therapists from all areas of practice and roles with longstanding commitments to working for human rights in the context of colonial oppressions, including genocide. We aim to affirm our deep commitment to occupational therapy’s values and principles by naming and acting against the ongoing genocide of Palestinian people. This paper is an act of collective resistance, self-assertion and solidarity for all those in the profession who have been erased, denied, and harmed by the silence of occupational therapy’s national and international governing bodies, as well as the silencing. We write this piece anonymously to add our voices to those healthcare professionals who are speaking out – including those working in healthcare in Gaza. We begin by naming the injustice, citing recent evidence and the rulings of various international bodies considered authoritative and legitimate. Then we address the injustice of silence, as experienced in the occupational therapy profession through the silencing of its members. We continue by reviewing relevant professional obligations and ethical responsibilities of occupational therapists, including the requirement to speak out against occupational injustices. This is followed by an outline and critique of our profession’s governing bodies’ problematic responses and complicity, naming the harms caused from within. We conclude this paper by indicating the only ethical option for action; one that also applies to other healthcare professions whose institutions have been silent, hoping this will incite them to break their silence.

Vocabulary Herfindahl Index (VocaHIn): Linguistic Dominance and Collective Effervescence in WallStreetBets

Our analysis of 150,000 WallStreetBets comments reveals dominant phrases when members of the community experience collective excitement and solidarity (Collective Effervescence). Using the novel Vocabulary Herfindahl Index (VocaHIn), we find that stock returns volatility increases after CE, and vice versa.

A CRIAÇÃO DE CONDOMÍNIOS EDILÍCIOS NO CONTEXTO DO ORDENAMENTO JURÍDICO

The objective of this research is to address the creation of condominium buildings within the legal framework. Initially, the concept of a condominium will be discussed. Subsequently, the legal regime of condominium buildings is detailed, highlighting Law No. 4,591/1964 as the main regulatory norm in Brazil. Following that, the legal nature of condominium buildings is analyzed, emphasizing the combination of individual ownership of private units with the co-ownership of common areas. The limits of property rights in the context of co-ownership are discussed, addressing how individual condominium owners’ rights are restricted by collective norms and decisions made in assemblies. The research methodology will be carried out through a literature review. These restrictions aim to maintain order and ensure harmonious coexistence among residents, imposing limits on the use of both private units and common areas. Next, the individual duties of condominium owners and the obligation of collective solidarity are explored. Finally, the article analyzes residential leasing of units within condominium buildings, considering how the private autonomy of landlords and tenants interacts with the collective rules of the condominium. The lease must comply with the internal regulations, ensuring that tenants also adhere to the obligations and responsibilities established to maintain order and peaceful coexistence.

Critical Intercultural Communication and the Public Sphere: Theoretical Engagements with Tahakkum and Other-Interculturality

ABSTRACT This article argues that tahakkum [ التَّحَكُّمِ ], an indigenous intercultural communication concept, impedes the functioning of the public sphere and underlines the failure (or unwillingness) of the authoritarian state and political actors to set conditions for plural deliberation and good governance. Using the critical cases of the sliding back of Islamist influence and the hirak (movement) against water privatization in an oasis town in southeast Morocco, the article theorizes tahakkum and proposes “other-interculturality” as an-other epistemological and ethical framework to articulate an intercultural communication model that interrogates embedded layers of power and domination, champions collective solidarity, and celebrates diversity without occluding difference.

Producing the public caregiver: the discursive politicization of family caregiving by Canadian caregiver organizations

How are problems of family/friend care framed and politicized, and with what socio-political implications? This feminist rhetorical analysis examines how carers are positioned, how problems and solutions of care are framed, and how carers’ social and political rights are supported by Canadian caregiver organizations. Organizations’ public materials draw on and expand narratives that foreground individual risk and recognition, decentring the state’s role. We elaborate on how carers’ citizenship rights are discursively bounded with proposed individualized solutions that support them in continuing to care. Broader narratives could consider carers’ human or citizenship rights or otherwise foreground relationality and complex collective care solidarities.

Solidarity and Suppression: The Power Struggle Between Labour and the State in Canada, 1914-24

During and after the First World War, labour groups in Canada mobilized to ameliorate their position as members of the working class. In their struggle to secure better hours, improved working conditions, and the right to collective bargaining, union activists resorted to increasingly radical measures to achieve their goals. These actions, however, were soon met with swift opposition from the state. Through restrictions on unions, crackdowns on strikes, and surveillance of their activities, labour faced formidable opposition from the economic and security apparatus of the state in the immediate postwar years. Since then, the struggle between workers and the state has called into question the collective solidarity of the Canadian labour movement. To answer that question, this article comparatively evaluates the strength of the labour movement to the strength of the state in Canada from 1914 to 1924. In so doing, it demonstrates that while the state was successful in its efforts to suppress labour, the extremity of this reaction testifies to the power that labour ultimately commanded at this time.

IDENTITY OF THE MODERN INDIVIDUAL IN THE CONTEXT OF SOCIAL-PHILOSOPHICAL ANALYSIS

The article examines the problem of individual identity formation in modern conditions of neoliberalism. It is noted that the research of subjectivity, «I» (self), which is the source and condition for the formation of individual identity, actualizes the study of this problem in many social and humanitarian sciences. In the context of socio-philosophical analysis, identity represents itself as a complicated dynamic phenomenon that constantly needs new definitions, clarifications and additions. The effectiveness of using E.Erikson’s theory of individual identity in modern conditions, its significance for the formation of «I» and P.Ricker’s concept of personalistic identity are analyzed. It has been clarified that a new request for the conceptualization of identity has been formed now, which is conditioned of the collapse of political ideologies, in particular, the communist one, the significant crisis of modern neoliberal ideology and the persistent search for new forms of collective involvement or solidarity of people in the current era of globalization. However, various forms of collective identity are imposed by society, its numerous communities, ideology, state institutions, mass media, social networks with their computer capabilities, dominance of advertisements, etc. Therefore, it is not surprising that now individuals are trying to find their own identity, going out from under the pressure of the collective, mainly discursive forms of identity, and already these efforts do not depend on them to a certain extent. The construct «collective identity» in many cases does not reflect the social I (social me) of the individual, as it was conceived in the last century, because society and its communities, which involve active, mobile and changing structures, cannot be thought in terms of subjectivity. Analogies and comparisons do not work here either on a conscious or unconscious level. In the studying identity, there is a significant problem of the transition from the individual to the collective level and vice versa. A collective or group does not have the qualities of individuality with its diversity of characteristics. Taking into account the conducted consideration, it can be stated that approaches to the formation of identity are now acquiring a profound semantic transformation. An assumption was made, which needs to be carefully investigated in the future, according to which the process of partial or complete absorption of individual identity by its collective forms is currently taking place. That’s why, there is an urgent need for the formation of a new interdisciplinary approach to the research of personal identity in the modern digital society.

Death Kongsi and the Survival of Chinese Death Processions in Padang City

This article explains how the ethnic Chinese of Padang maintain the continuity of the death procession in Chinese culture. This article uses a historical approach by utilizing sources in the form of Dutch period documents, organizational documents of Himpunan Tjinta Teman (HTT) and Himpunan Bersatu Teguh (HBT), newspaper news and literature studies on the death processions of ethnic Chinese in Indonesia and outside Indonesia, as well as observations and interviews with HBT and HTT funeral administrators. These sources are used to find facts related to the death processions carried out by ethnic Chinese and the existence of HBT and HTT as institutions organizing Padang Chinese funeral processions. Furthermore, the existing facts are analyzed using historical and ethnographic approaches. The findings of the article show that the ethnic Chinese of Padang still carry out and preserve the implementation of the Chinese cultural death procession in an organizational forum. In this case, the organization's function as the organizer of the death procession for Padang Chinese is the key to the survival and existence of the organization itself. Various Chinese cultures preserved and inherited in the HTT and HBT organizations, including the culture of death, are essential in forming self- and collective identity and solidarity of Chinese community groups in the city of Padang.

KONSEP LIMINALITAS DALAM RITUAL ANDHERENAT

Liminality is a concept referring to the transitional phase in which individuals or groups experience a suspension of hierarchy and social structure, fostering a sense of togetherness, collective solidarity, and equality. The andherenat ritual on Gili Iyang Island, Sumenep Regency, is a tradition of the migrant Buton-Binongko community aimed at invoking rain and maintaining soil fertility. This study explores and analyzes liminality in the andherenat ritual and its sociocultural implications for the assimilative community. A qualitative method and case study strategy were used, focusing on the cultural activities of the andherenat ritual. The research findings reveal that the andherenat ritual involves three phases of liminality: separation, liminality, and incorporation. The separation phase is marked by the performance of tawassul, yasin, tahlil, and praise, separating participants from everyday life. The liminality phase is a transitional period where participants undergo spiritual transformation through activities such as the topak lober procession and circling the island. The incorporation phase reintegrates participants into society with renewed identities, highlighted by a communal feast.

Mediation and Convergent Sociality: Toward a Theory of Social Dialogue

The article investigates the mechanisms shaping a new quality of social development in contemporary Russia amidst growing societal challenges. Four key mechanisms are explored: mediation, social dialogue, polysubjectivity, and convergence. These are analyzed for their role in fostering novel forms of social integration and development. The mechanisms serve as tools for studying and shaping the current interplay between tradition and innovation, cultural stasis and social dynamics across various sociocultural contexts and transitional processes. The paper draws upon works presented at the All-Russian Scientific Conference “Individualization and Collectivism in Contemporary Russian Society,” offering an original interpretation that synthesizes and structures these studies. Notable contributions include V.A. Lektorsky’s concept of “the supra-individual as social universality,” which advances our understanding of socio-individual meaning formation and transcends the individual-society dichotomy. A.A. Auzan’s analysis of the dual-core structure of Russian culture aptly captures the unique challenges of social development in Russia. O.V. Aksenova’s examination of the contradictory nature of social action subjects in an increasingly technologized society illuminates the complexities of balancing freedom with necessity, and uniformity with diversity in social action. V.M. Rozin’s approach is considered for its potential to facilitate mediational social dialogue in Russian society. The author argues that neither the individualistic nor the collectivist cores of Russian culture can independently drive effective modernization. Instead, the concept of convergence is proposed as a means to transcend the extremes of ego-individualism and totalitarian collectivism. Three primary directions for implementing convergent strategies are identified: synthesizing individual and social aspects in social action and dialogue, optimizing center-periphery interactions in governance, and developing public-private partnership models as a form of economic convergence. The study emphasizes the need for new forms of social integration and concludes that Russia’s sustainable social development requires an integrative socio-individual model, combining elements of individual freedom and collective solidarity.

The reactionary use of concepts of secularism, pluralism and freedom of expression: implications for education studies

ABSTRACT This paper is the text of a keynote address given at the Education Studies Association of Ireland Conference on March 31st 2023. Drawing on diverse examples of reactionary politics in Ireland and the UK such as protests against queer-inclusive education, the maintenance of sectarian and Catholic majoritarian schooling, and the use of ideas of 'free speech' arguments to shut down anti-racist education, Karl Kitching argues for vigilance against the use of ostensibly liberal ideas about secularism, pluralism and free expression to damage collective solidarity, equality and democracy in education and wider society.

Speaking truth to funders: Alternative accountabilities in the voluntary and community sector during the COVID‐19 pandemic

AbstractThis paper studies grassroots organizations that provide various forms of support to vulnerable local communities in the United Kingdom in a context of increasing austerity, public sector drawbacks, a lack of funding and extensive monitoring, and evaluative requirements. We focus on the COVID‐19 pandemic, which challenged traditional funding relationships. We analyze lived experiences of trust, emotion, and suffering to understand the politics of accountability across the diverse economy. We draw on Gibson‐Graham's post‐capitalist framework, which insists on the politics of language, the subject, and collective action. In the setting we study, the language of crisis reshaped funding, vulnerable subjectivities emerged to support vulnerable communities, and fragmenting accountabilities were met with attempts to promote collective action and solidarity. We, therefore, contribute to literature in critical accounting and literature focused on the voluntary and community sector by studying a landscape of diverse accountability practices to explore the possibilities that they offer in terms of accounting for non‐capitalist organizing.

Solid Organ Transplant Litigation at One of Europe's Largest University Hospitals.

Due to its intrinsic complexity and the principle of collective solidarity that governs it, solid organ transplantation (SOT) seems to have been spared from the increase in litigation related to medical activity. Litigation relating to solid organ transplantation that took place in the 29 units of the Assistance Publique-Hôpitaux de Paris and was the subject of a judicial decision between 2015 and 2022 was studied. A total of 52 cases of SOT were recorded, all in adults, representing 1.1% of all cases and increasing from 0.71% to 1.5% over 7years. The organs transplanted were 25 kidneys (48%), 19 livers (37%), 5 hearts (9%) and 3 lungs (6%). For kidney transplants, 11 complaints (44%) were related to living donor procedures and 6 to donors. The main causes of complaints were early post-operative complications in 31 cases (60%) and late complications in 13 cases (25%). The verdicts were in favour of the institution in 41 cases (79%). Solid organ transplants are increasingly the subject of litigation. Although the medical institution was not held liable in almost 80% of cases, this study makes a strong case for patients, living donors and their relatives to be better informed about SOT.

From schema to rhuthmos: the idiorrhythmic encounters of the bridge of winds

The Bridge of Winds is an international research group founded in 1989 by Odin Teatret actress Iben Nagel Rasmussen. For thirty-three years, a core group of artists from 12 countries has met together annually, carrying out in-depth research into the actor’s craft. During these encounters, highly detailed psychophysical training is recovered and developed by the group, which feeds into performances, concerts and barters. The aim of this critical article is to reflect on the role of agency in the Bridge of Wind’s practice, drawing on field research carried out by the author in December 2021. It is argued that Rasmussen and her partners in the Bridge of Winds have re-envisioned laboratory theatre practice, allowing for an idiorrhythmic culture of practice to emerge that balances schema (fixed, fully developed form) and rhuthmos, (improvised, changeable form). Whilst the members of the Bridge of Winds are rigorous and disciplined, having inherited a laboratory ethos and schematic leaning grounded in the practice of Odin Teatret, there is a tenacious trace in their work of an idiorrhythmity that also allows for subversion, transformation and revolt. The group’s training, in particular, accommodates the reality of the older actor’s body, just as it enables younger arrivals to excavate a sense of bios. Thus, the essay will chart out the contours of a particular nomadic laboratory practice that advocates both individual agency and collective solidarity, serving as a creative touchstone and wellspring for its members.

On shifting sands: Exploring the role of the third space in new Basque cinema’s Pikadero and Oreina

Cinema is a powerful tool for depicting and critically addressing the dual nature of identity (composed of both individual and social traits). This article analyses two underrated titles of the post-2005 wave of Basque-language cinema: Pikadero (Sharrock 2015) and Oreina (The Deer) (Almandoz 2018). In both films, certain liminal third spaces – the ‘non-places’ coined by Augé and the ‘in-between’ spaces formulated by Bhabha – seem to interact with the misfit characters, who live between rootedness and lack of belonging within a new social context created by the influx of migrants and the economic crisis in the Basque Country. The article argues that these on-screen third spaces (mainly the railway station and the peripheral marshlands in Pikadero and The Deer, respectively) become a kind of resilient deuteragonist in their own right, i.e. witnesses or accomplices to the protagonists’ wanderings and their shallow and fleeting relationships. There is, however, a difference between the non-places featured in Pikadero, which mainly evoke solitude and similarity, and those in-between spaces present in The Deer. The latter appear as metaphorical hybrid places that can harbour otherness and foster collective solidarity, thus playing a role in shaping the new centrality of Basque identity.

Framing the climate emergency: the role of music in extinction rebellion

ABSTRACT This paper addresses the role of music in Extinction Rebellion (XR), a radical environmental movement founded in the UK in 2018. Through an analysis of the lyrics and sound of 80 songs (which comprise XR’s ‘Rebellion Song Book’) XR’s music is presented as both a purposeful strategy (i.e. a framing mechanism) for articulating core grievances and their accompanying solutions, and as a binding mechanism that works to reinforce solidarity and collective identity among members. The results show that XR’s songs reflect the broader messaging of the movement – that environmental degradation has caused a climate emergency and that unless immediate action is taken to address this an ecosystem collapse awaits humanity. As well as clear grievances emerging in the lyrics, solutions to these are articulated (through stressing the importance of heeding science and organizing citizens assemblies to steer government decisions); and calls to action are made (through calling for rebellion). The paper shows that while XR’s music can inspire collective action to address climate issues, an equally important function is that it can engender emotional responses in both those who sing and listen to it, bringing members together and reinforcing a form of collective identity and solidarity, and thus strengthening the cohesion of the movement.

Social Morality and Absolute Morality within The Framework of Bergsonian Metaphysical Vitalism

Social moral obligation, its automatism and false faces, declarative and regulatory laws, the individual and social ego, collective solidarity and the pulsation of creative emotion, intelligent and instinctual society, open and closed social dynamics, Divinity as a transcendent religious reference point and Reason as the limit of moral-philosophical endeavors - all these concepts and themes are just a few of the major subjects that crystallize Bergsonian vitalism's conception, a conception that cannot be identified with religious forms of metaphysical approach but clearly approaches the scenario of thought and experience proposed by these forms. This text attempts to capture such a similarity and dialectical interplay between the concepts evoked above.

The Impact of Empathy and Fear on Solidarity during a Pandemic

It is believed that solidarity is motivated by positive collective feelings (group cohesion, social responsibility, etc.), as well as by individual empathy of group members. Motivation may change vector if all members of society are potential victims of a pandemic. An analysis of data obtained from an online survey of 331 Russian-speaking respondents (19 countries) from March 2021 to April 2023 revealed a weak link between empathy (both affective and cognitive) and the solidarity attitudes on safe behavior. On the contrary, a significant correlation was found between negative Ego-feelings (fear for oneself and health) and the expression of the most important solidarity attitudes -wearing masks, social distancing and vaccination. This contradicts the old tradition of considering individual empathy as the principal factor of collective solidarity. In particular, the bodily metaphor of rapprochement, embracing with others, which is the core of empathy, contradicts the requirement of physical distance. A positive correlation was also noted between the pronouncement of solidarity attitudes and the experience of material aid to strangers. Fears for oneself and empathy for others are experiences with opposite vectors. Fears can block empathy. Thus, the phenomenon of synchronous behavior of people, similar to solidarity, but with nonspecific negative motivation, was discovered. We believe that solidarity-like activity should be distinguished from conscious, trained solidarity based on the belief that suffering and unprotected groups and people need to be supported by the state and other citizens.