Solidarity Action Research Articles

‘Who sows hunger, reaps rage’: on protest, indignation and redistributive justice in post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina

This paper reflects upon the socio-economic legacies of Dayton Peace Accords, and the ways in which these legacies were brought into focus by the 2014 Bosnian Uprising. This wave of protests, which started in February of 2014 in the industrial city of Tuzla but quickly spread all over the country, was the (un)anticipated result of rising popular indignation over high unemployment, economic decline and general sense of futurelessness. Protesters attacked both symbolic and literal centres of power, targeting local political elites whose self-serving behaviours and insolent attitudes helped deepen the post-war political and economic crisis. Combining long-term ethnographic research of post-war grassroots politics with more recent investigations of the effects of post-war deindustrialization, this paper anchors the new politics of indignation in Bosnia in its broader historical context. The 2014 protests, this paper argues, demarkate Dayton Bosnia as a postsocialist space, deeply transformed by ongoing socio-economic restructuring, and changing conceptions of political solidarity, social justice and political action.

Ubiquitous witnesses: who creates the evidence and the live(d) experience of human rights violations?

Contemporary human rights activism and witnessing includes a range of new participants. Their practice operates at the intersection of established and emerging forms of documentation and advocacy. Questions about the roles of ‘citizen witnesses’ and ‘citizen investigators’ parallel concerns in the news-gathering world around ‘citizen journalists’. Two poles of the current paradigm of citizen witnessing manifest how existing professional norms and activist practices are being disrupted. Citizens act as first-hand responders on the scene of human rights violations, documenting for potential evidentiary value. As the volume of videos from a context like Syria depicting potential war crimes reaches half a million, questions arise as to how this citizen documentation relates to current and historical paradigms of human rights and justice documentation. In another context, on-the-scene witnesses in locations such as Brazil livestream video from the sites of violations to others who are co-present, watching those livestreams from other locations as ‘distant witnesses’. Using examples and documented practices from Syria, Brazil as well as the emergent methods of media collectives and human rights groups such as WITNESS, this paper explores the characteristics of these witnessing contexts, how they relate to established ideas of witnessing and human rights practice, and the emergent ‘pain points’ that create tension with those existing norms. Finally, the paper develops a set of speculations on the practical possibilities of a more meaningful image and experience-based solidarity activism at the intersection of trends in live and immersive video, ‘co-presence’ technologies for shared experience at a distance, and task-routing technologies that make use of distributed movements. The paper concludes with the ethical questions around this type of vicarious experience.

Filling a Buzzword with Life: The Implementation of the Solidarity Clause in Article 222 TFEU

The principle of solidarity has informed the whole European integration process but with the Treaty of Lisbon, this concept has become centre-stage. A number of provisions within the European Union (EU) treaties refer directly or indirectly to this concept. It has, however, also to be remarked that in the past solidarity has often meant different things to different people and the financial crisis which was accompanied by loud cries for and against solidarity has again given proof to this fact. In Article 222 TFEU (Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union) a broad provision on solidarity is to be found: ‘The Union and its Member States shall act jointly in a spirit of solidarity if a Member State is the object of a terrorist attack or the victim of a natural or man-made-disaster.’ Although not addressing solidarity in an all-encompassing way it refers to important fields of solidarity action. By the Decision of 24 June 2014 the main aspects of this Solidarity Clause were implemented. Although the Union has chosen a prudent approach it will be shown that this approach was the most appropriate one to make solidarity manageable. Within the present attempts to keep the Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) on track, important insights can be obtained from this discussion.

Practices of collective action and solidarity: reconfigurations of the public space in crisis-ridden Athens, Greece

The multifaceted crisis that has hit Greece in the past years has had severe consequences on people’s everyday lives. In an attempt to cope with, and also resist dramatic changes in lifestyles, incomes and welfare, several initiatives have sprung up all over the country at many different scales, with diverse targets, varying actors and outcomes. Many people have abandoned their privacy to participate in public actions of solidarity, in initiatives that often involve new or alternative uses of urban space. It seems that practices of solidarity and claims around material spaces are becoming an important “laboratory” for shaping a different public sphere. The paper aimed to reflect on the ways in which such practices and claims arise and develop; how different types of rights and forms of doing politics are enacted in situations of crisis and deprivation; and finally how such practices reconfigure public space. We draw from relevant examples of initiatives in Athens, in order to discuss acts of coping and resistance and to reflect on the extent to which the concept of social innovation may provide fruitful insights into our discussion.

Studying frictions: Activists, journalists and Bedouin around a “ghost-village” in Israel

In the Israeli Negev desert, home demolition of unauthorized Arab-Bedouin villages is a contested issue, enacting multiple and contradictory realities. The tents and shacks of el-Shams, for instance, have been demolished almost ten times in one year by the Israeli police, but each time they have been reconstructed with the help of human rights activists. Surprisingly and in contrast to nearly all circulating discourses, nobody ever lived in the demolished buildings – what at one level becomes a humanitarian catastrophe, at another becomes a “ghost village”. Drawing on recent reflections on global ethnography, this article seeks to follow “zones of friction” and connections among people, money, discourses, and emotions that developed around this specific case: relations that range from solidarity activities to the discursive practices of journalists and dislocated officials of international organizations. On a more abstract level, the emerging contradictions between these levels reveal the implications of an uncritically reproduced idea of “local community”. I argue that by following such connections, we gain important insights how transnational power relations are shaping multiple realities around a political conflict.

Studying frictions: Activists, journalists and Bedouin around a “ghost-village” in Israel

In the Israeli Negev desert, home demolition of unauthorized Arab-Bedouin villages is a contested issue, enacting multiple and contradictory realities. The tents and shacks of el-Shams, for instance, have been demolished almost ten times in one year by the Israeli police, but each time they have been reconstructed with the help of human rights activists. Surprisingly and in contrast to nearly all circulating discourses, nobody ever lived in the demolished buildings – what at one level becomes a humanitarian catastrophe, at another becomes a “ghost village”. Drawing on recent reflections on global ethnography, this article seeks to follow “zones of friction” and connections among people, money, discourses, and emotions that developed around this specific case: relations that range from solidarity activities to the discursive practices of journalists and dislocated officials of international organizations. On a more abstract level, the emerging contradictions between these levels reveal the implications of an uncritically reproduced idea of “local community”. I argue that by following such connections, we gain important insights how transnational power relations are shaping multiple realities around a political conflict.

A Luta Continua: radical filmmaking, Pan-African liberation and communal empowerment

While the anti-apartheid movement has emerged as the premier illustration of transnational solidarity activism, little attention has been paid to the earlier success of the Portuguese African liberation movements. During the 1970s, parties like Mozambique’s FRELIMO established global alliance networks that helped sell their revolutions to ambivalent western societies. In the African American community, the construction of these transnational linkages was aided tremendously by radical filmmaking in the form of American Robert Van Lierop’s A Luta Continua. This transnational collaboration created a film that captured the universal and practical elements of FRELIMO ideology in a way that became a model for local organising, particularly in the African American community. Activists concerned about solidarity with southern Africa, communal control of resources and racial equality all used Van Lierop’s interpretation of FRELIMO’s socialism in A Luta Continua to construct grassroots movements that would spread nationally in the 1970s and lay the groundwork for more familiar anti-apartheid activism in the next decade.

La empresa social en España y en Italia durante la crisis ¿un laboratorio de innovación económica y social?

En este artículo analizamos el desarrollo de empresa social en España e Italia en el marco de la crisis económica y social, en términos de difusión y marco jurídico. De esta manera, definimos los confines del “ecosistema” de la empresa social en los dos países e identificamos elementos comunes y especifidades. La hipótesis es que la empresa social representa una herramienta de generación de respuestas proactivas a la crisis, impulsando trayectorias de innovación económica y social, y contribuyendo a un modelo de desarrollo económica y socialmente sostenible. La innovación surge de la capacidad de las empresas sociales de generar respuestas innovativas a demandas emergentes, de su capacidad de crear al mismo tiempo valor social y económico, de satisfacer necesidades individuales y colectivas, de activar dinámicas de cambio de medio y largo plazo, de estimular dinámicas de emprendimiento, de empoderamiento y de valorización en el territorio. Sin embargo, el carácter innovador de la empresa social no surge simplemente de una empresarializacción del Tercer Sector tradicional, y mucho menos como consecuencia de la transferencia de servicios fundamentales del estado a asociaciones, cooperativas y empresas sociales, si con eso se persigue el simple objetivo de reducción de los gastos públicos. Al contrario, detrás de la retórica de la innovación social se puedan esconder proyectos de reducción de los gastos de servicios a través de la reducción de los salarios y de la cualidad de los servicios. El artículo, a partir de la comparación de la difusión del fenómeno y de las perspectivas de desarrollo en España y en Italia, termina con una reflexión crítica sobre las luces y sombras, los riesgos y las oportunidades, relacionados con la difusión de la empresa social, o sea, de la integración de la acción solidaria y la acción económica en prácticas que son al mismo tiempo empresariales y con finalidades sociales.

The Activist Polis: Topologies of Conflict in Indigenous Solidarity Activism

AbstractInterpersonal conflict poses a serious threat to social justice activism. In the context of indigenous solidarity activism in southern Arizona, conflicts are often born of the challenges accompanying differentials in social privilege due to differences in race and ethnicity relative to white supremacist settler colonialism. This paper examines activist collaboration between Tohono O'odham and non‐Native anarchist activists in southern Arizona, arguing that a topological activist polis is a useful lens through which we can better understand the roots of conflict in social justice activism. Non‐Native activists are often aware of the ways white supremacist settler colonial society privileges particular identities while marginalizing others. Nonetheless, settler and white privilege give rise to tensions which can be seen topologically through the very different relationships non‐Native and indigenous activists have to ongoing processes of white supremacy and to histories of the genocide of indigenous peoples.

The Fairness of Solidarity Bills under the Solidarity Value of Nowak and Radzik

The solidarity value is a variant of the well-known Shapley value in which some sense of solidarity between the players is implemented allowing the disabled to receive help from the fortunate ones. We investigate on how fairly solidarity expenses are shared. We discuss the unwanted side effect of someone paying undue solidarity contributions as far as reversing his condition from a privileged to a needy person. A deeper case study is conducted for two classes of TU games that we obtain by modeling two real world business contexts. Here, we trace all player to player transfers of funds that arise when solidarity actions are processed, and we answer the question of who settles the solidarity bills. Also, we obtain the threshold position of a player below which he gets solidarity help, but above which he instead pays out donation.

We Intend to Move Together

The story of women's participation in the ecumenical movement can indeed be described as a pilgrimage of justice and peace, as well as a story of mission. From the earliest days of ecumenism--whether in its formal, institutional structures or in the lively work and witness of local communities around the globe--questions about women's role in the churches have been intertwined with questions about the social, economic, and cultural forces that affect women's lives. With changing emphasis shaped by particular time and context, the consistent thread in the journey has been a will to respond to the call to participate in God's mission in the world in ways that contribute to wholeness and fullness of life for all God's people and to the flourishing of creation. While not always named or recognized as such, gender justice has been at the heart of this journey. Consistently, women have been seeking ecumenical space in which the diverse experiences of women, their voices and visions, and the conditions of injustice and oppression that have been the lot of many women around the world can be lifted up and addressed. And in that space, women have claimed their own agency of resistance and transformation. The story of women's work and witness in the World Council of Churches (WCC) is only one facet of this journey. Each church family and world communion could tell its own story and each local context has had times of ecumenical witness and action--often connected with global programs, but also representative of particular local needs and issues. Nevertheless, the WCC has played a key role since its inception in linking ecumenical women in local contexts with international networks and global currents. A review of WCC programmes and structures committed to the journey of gender justice reveals both the rich heritage of ecumenical women's work and the challenges and gaps that continue. Affirming the "service and status of women" In the 1940s, when the WCC was still in the process of formation, Twila Cavert, a Young Women Christian Association (YWCA) leader from the US, together with other women, gained the support of WCC leaders for a pre-assembly women's meeting and a survey of woman leaders worldwide about their vision for the work of women in the whole church. (1) The questionnaire netted detailed replies from women in 58 countries, and prompted the Reformed Church of France to request that the question of women's role be placed on the agenda of the first assembly in Amsterdam in 1948. There, the study report on "The Life and Work of Women in the Church" was received and its recommendation for a permanent commission to undertake ecumenical inquiry into issues related to women's ministry was accepted. Susannah Herzel writes of the significance of these first steps for the participation of women in churches around the world: "So the infiltration had begun. Member churches of the ecumenical movement had agents of change in their midst, and the troubling questions would be increasingly difficult to ignore." (2) The material generated by the study was developed into a book by Kathleen Bliss, published in 1952 as The Service and Status of Women in the Churches, (3) Interpreting the reports through the framework of women's various types of service--voluntary, full-time and professional, ordained, and participation in church governance--Bliss examined the contributions and limitations of each area of endeavour. She asked whether the churches were making the best use of women's gifts, or helping women to participate as Christians in the changes taking place in society as a whole. Writing during a period of flux in women's public and private roles, Bliss urged churches to recognize the implications of changing family and employment patterns. She asserted that "what is needed is ... an imaginative act of understanding ... [of the] ... revolutionary change in the place of women in society." (4) These reports from around the world provided evidence that responses to women's ministries ranged from indifference to active opposition. …

The Solidarity Activities of Anarchists from Korea, China and Japan During the Period of Japanese Invasion as a Precedence Case of Establishment of Anti-War and Anti-Aggressive International Solidarity in the East Asia

일제침략기 한 · 중 · 일 세 나라 아나키스트들의 연대는 20세기 초 일본 東京을 주 무대로 하여 한 · 중 유학생들과 당시 일본의 진보적 사상계의 대표적 인물인 幸德秋水 · 大杉榮 등과의 교류에서 비롯되었다.BR 적어도 1920년대 초반 까지는 도쿄가 세 나라 아나키스트간 연대활동의 중심지 역할을 하였으나, 1920년 중반 이후 일본사회의 파시즘화가 진전되는 사실을 배경으로, 일본인 아나키스트들도 활동무대를 중국으로 옮기게 되었다. 이로써 중국대륙은 한 · 중 · 일 세 나라 아나키스트들의 연대활동의 현장이 되었다.BR 세 나라 아나키스트들의 연대 형성에는 크로포트킨의 相互扶助論이 연결고리 역할을 하였다. 사회진화론의 適者生存論은 약자인 동아시아 지식인들에게 심각한 위기감을 불러일으켰는데, 상호부조론에 기초한 사회혁명의 방향 제시는 이론적 곤경에서 빠져나올 수 있는 돌파구를 마련해 주었다.BR 또 아나키즘의 ‘反强權’ 논리가 種族主義의 틀을 넘어서 약소민족의 국제연대를 통해 반제국주의를 주장한다는 점에서, 상호부조의 원리와 함께 한 · 중 아나키스트간의 교류와 연대를 가능케 한 동력으로 역할하였다고 할 수 있을 것이다. 日帝라는 존재가 ‘强權’의 구체적인 모습을 띠었기에, ‘反强權’의 구체적인 모습 역시 反日 · 反帝로 모아지게 되었던 것이다.BR 이와 함께 국가와 민족의 구성원으로서 ‘個人’이기를 거부하는 아나키스트로서의 정체성은 국가와 민족이라는 틀을 뛰어넘어 ‘자유연합’의 의지를 매개로 삼아, 국제연대를 형성할 수 있게 이끌었다고 할 수 있을 것이다.BR 아울러 일제의 대륙침략과 이에 맞선 반파시즘체제로 대표되는 1930년대 국제정세에 대한 대응논리로서 아나키즘 논리의 외연이 확장된 사실을 주목할 수 있다. 즉 일제의 아시아 침략이 강화됨에 따라 ‘반강권 투쟁=항일투쟁’이라는 합의하에 민족주의세력과의 연대를 통해 ‘先 항일 後 아나키즘사회 건설’ 논리로 귀결되었던 것이다. 그러기에 민족주의세력과의 연대도 가능해졌고, 국가의 존재감 역시 타도 대상이 아니라, 약소민족 해방과 반제 · 반파시즘의 구심점으로서 새롭게 해석될 수 있었다.BR 이 같은 사실은 아나키즘이 갖고 있는 사고의 유연성과 시의성을 알려준다고 하겠다. 아나키즘사회 건설이라는 목표 달성에 집착하여, 상황과 환경의 변화에 조응하는 데 실패한 실험이 되지 않기 위해, 반파시즘 국제연대라고 하는 시대적 요구에 부응하며 아나키즘의 가치 구현을 위해 진력했던 사실에 함축되어 있는 의미는 한 · 중 · 일 세 나라 사이에 고조되고 있는 역사 · 영토를 둘러싼 긴장관계를 극복해야 하는 지금에 있어서도 여전히 유효하다고 할 것이다.

The Palestine Solidarity Movement, Human Rights and Twitter

This paper examines the reaction of the Palestine Solidarity Movement in Ireland and the UK to the recent Israeli war on Gaza. It studies how the major solidarity groups used Twitter in their endeavour to show online audiences the Palestinian narrative, along with providing information on local solidarity activities. The paper suggests that the Twitter platform was used by major solidarity groups during the war as a tool to connect with Palestinian activists, to inform online followers about human stories of the Palestinian victims and to organise local supporting activities. Results suggest that the text and images used, support the movement’s emphasis on human rights discourse.

Psicología social y posconflicto: ¿reformamos o revolucionamos?

En el marco del IV Foro de Psicología y Contemporaneidad y II Foro en Psicología Social y Posconflicto, organizado en la Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana – seccional Palmira, se realizó un trabajo de indagación teórica sobre los impactos del conflicto y posconflicto, desde los ámbitos político, educativo, la salud mental y la desmovilización en Colombia. Esta revisión establece criterios para suponer que el posconflicto busca la generación de estrategias para la construcción de una sociedad democrática que logre instaurar un equilibrio entre la población civil y el Estado, con el fin de recuperar la participación de cada uno de los ciudadanos tanto en dinámicas humanitarias, como en la recuperación de las relaciones sociales, sobre las cuales se edifica el andamiaje de un país con acción solidaria y en paz. Con todo esto, queda por dejar abierta la pregunta: ¿Colombia realmente se encuentra en un estado de posconflicto? © Revista Colombiana de Ciencias Sociales.

Lost in Translation? Pussy Riot Solidary Activism and the danger of perpetuating North/Western Hegemonies

This article critically discusses solidarity actions in support of Pussy Riot within the global North/West, arguing that most solidarity projects within popular culture as well as within the queer-feminist counterculture are based on a lopsided interpretation of Pussy Riot as Russian version of Riot Grrrl feminists. This one-dimensional interpretation of the performance art group as Riot Grrrl-identities further leads to labelling their performance at the Christ the Saviour Cathedral as anti-religious. Within this framework the group’s negotiation of Orthodox religion within their song lyrics, performances as well as statements is ignored, supporting the binary construction of The North/West as progressive – tolerant and secular – and Russia as backward – dogmatic and fundamentalist religious. We attempt to complicate the view on Pussy Riot’s performances and reread them within the Russian context, highlighting several political statements that got lost in North/Western translations. The focus of the analysis concentrates on the ‘Punk Prayer, its mimicry of religious language and references to the leadership of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as the local public critical discourses.

The Road from Antipinkwashing Activism to the Decolonization of Palestine

The Road from Antipinkwashing Activism to the Decolonization of Palestine Lynn Darwich (bio) and Haneen Maikey (bio) The Combahee River Collective Statement (1977) articulates a firm stand against sexism in movements for Black liberation and racism in white women’s movements in the United States. It is a compelling and inspiring call by Black feminists to dismantle interlocking sociopolitical and economic systems of oppression, namely capitalism, imperialism, racism, and patriarchy. The statement reflects a tense political moment in which a set of principles for consciousness-raising and political engagement are discerned for the sake of the liberation of all oppressed people. Oppressions experienced by Black women, and lesbians in particular, are centered in the statement, especially, says the Combahee River Collective, as “the most profound and potentially most radical politics come directly out of our own identity, as opposed to working to end somebody else’s oppression.” Now, more than four decades later, anchoring one’s political work in personal and collective experiences of oppression is as relevant and meaningful. In our own organizing toward the decolonization of Palestine, and with the rise of antipinkwashing activism, both nationalist and identity-based forms of political organizing have continually been questioned and contested for their inherent limitations in forging strong coalitional politics. After all, antipinkwashing activism did not emerge within a vacuum but as a response to Israel’s use of gay culture and rights to distract from and normalize Israeli occupation, settler colonialism, and apartheid. It is at the intersection of lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and queer movements and the Palestine solidarity movement. Before antipinkwashing, these two movements had rarely been perceived as ones that could potentially connect [End Page 281] or interact. As a result of this binary understanding, antipinkwashing has been formulated as a new form of organizing, a new tactic, aimed to reform both movements: adding a bit of “solidarity” to LGBT movements and a little “gayness” to Palestine solidarity work. But is the task of antipink-washing activism to politicize LGBT movements, or is antipinkwashing an attempt to queer up Palestine solidarity movements? In other words, does antipinkwashing have the potential to expand beyond these limitations and become, not a reformist, but a radically transformative strategy? Nearly four years have passed since the launch of antipinkwashing campaigns the world over. Since then, we’ve seen pro-Israel organizations counterattack with much anticipated allegations of anti-Semitism and racism, we’ve witnessed organized efforts against Israeli pinkwashing from an antiwar/antiracism lens, and we’ve also taken note that many LGBT activists and groups have integrated antipinkwashing within the framework of international gay solidarity activism. Aside from Palestinian Queers for BDS (pqbds.com) and alQaws (alqaws.org), both in Palestine, and a network of Arab activists, mainly through Pinkwatching Israel (pinkwatchingisrael.com), most initiatives have sprung within the global North. Antipinkwashing activism has rapidly become a striking and tense embodiment of all the questions that could emerge (or rather erupt) from the nexus of sexualized, gendered, and racialized politics within a modern gay transnational solidarity movement. In light of emerging politics of solidarity and our inherently different positionalities, would it be useful to assume that everyone in this movement is here for the same reasons and is fighting for the same cause? Does “gayness” charge our activism, and if yes, toward what, and how? The Combahee River Collective Statement, for example, contextualizes and centers Black lesbian sexuality within wider movements in order to disrupt the heterosexism, racism, and economic oppressions circulating in those movements. Sexual orientations, however, in their contemporary depoliticized and neoliberal forms, cannot but narrow and limit antipinkwashing as a transnational solidarity movement. Framing antipinkwash activism through the familiar mainstream LGBT lens does not work: sexual orientations and gender identities cannot be the sole driving forces through which we relate to antipinkwashing efforts, especially as this takes away the focus from the central issue of Palestine. This is because pinkwashing in itself relies heavily on the logic of “gay rights” as it is commonly understood and practiced—a single-issue struggle based on one’s sexual identity [End Page 282] to the exclusion of a range of interconnected categories of identification, such as race, ethnicity, class...

Dismissal of strikers and industrial disputes: the 1985–1987 strike and mass sackings at Silentnight

The 1985–1987 dispute at Silentnight bed factories in the north of England was an exceptionally long and bitter strike, lasting for 20 months from June 1985 until February 1987. A total of 346 workers were sacked for taking part in the strike, which gained a high profile with remarkable levels of support and solidarity action, largely due to its emblematic status as an extreme example of punitive treatment of workers taking industrial action in the period immediately following the defeat of the miners in 1984/1985. Workers took lawful strike action in 1985 over the non-implementation of agreed pay rises and compulsory redundancies counter to an existing agreement between the firm and the union, with the company responding to the dispute with mass dismissals. Pickets were maintained at the two factories in question for nearly two years, with the strikers gaining wide-ranging support from across the labour movement, but the company stood firm against the dismissed strikers who were ultimately defeated. Based on archival research and interviews with participants in the strike, the article analyses in detail how the dispute was sustained for so long, the legal context and the weakness of legal protections for strikers in the period, and the widespread political mobilisation and networks of support and solidarity that arose around the strike and in opposition to the policies of the Conservative government of the day.

Between diplomacy and solidarity: Western European support networks for Sandinista Nicaragua

Between the 1960s and 1980s, political crises in the Third World became a source of inspiration and action in Western European societies. The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua was one of the most famous instigators of transnational activism. All over Western Europe, locally organised committees staged public actions, collected funds and educated their societies about the plight of this Central American nation, whose Marxist government faced strong international opposition from the Reagan administration as well as domestic social, political and economic turbulence. This article looks at Third World solidarity activism from a new perspective, assessing the active role of the Sandinista Liberation Front (FSLN) in the emergence and development of activism in Western Europe. It argues that FSLN diplomacy – initially by exiles and later by official diplomats – initiated the creation of transnational networks, driven by the quest for international support. They fuelled activism by providing activists with fresh information, contacts and avenues for action, but also cemented cross-border co-operation between activists and stimulated a ‘Europeanisation’ of local activism.

Workers Confront Apartheid: Comparing Canadian Labor Solidarity Campaigns against South African and Israeli Apartheid

This article explores the challenges of building international labor solidarity by comparing two campaigns that developed inside the Canadian labor movement. I critically compare and assess the campaign against South African apartheid in the 1980s and the more recent efforts to oppose Israeli apartheid. Both campaigns are examples of grassroots international labor solidarity, where organizers sought to build international solidarity through member mobilization and a focus on the power of workers to engage in solidarity actions. I examine how these union activists organized within their unions, and how their organizational differences and the ideological and political contexts they organized within shaped their successes and limitations. Drawing from the work of Antonio Gramsci, I argue that these campaigns were sites of counter‐hegemonic practice both because of the analysis and critiques they offered but also because of the nature of their organizing.

‘The Sons of Marx Greet the Sons of Sandino’: West German Solidarity Visitors to Nicaragua Sandinista

This article explores the phenomenon of revolutionary tourism to Nicaragua under the Sandinistas and conceives of it as a practice of transnational solidarity, which was fostered by activists and Sandinistas alike. Individual visits and solidarity brigades proved to be an effective tool to strengthen support for the revolution. It provided activists with the possibility to experience the revolutionary process first-hand and to establish personal, emotional bonds. The knowledge and experiences collected during visits represented a strong incentive to engage in solidarity actions afterwards, thus emphasizing the multiplying propagandistic effects of solidarity tourism. On the one hand, personal motivations of solidarity visitors mostly met the official political expectations of Sandinistas and their solidarity partners abroad, on the other hand, they also reflected notions of protest against contemporary West German politics and sometimes also purely touristic desires.