How is solidarity possible?

 This week, our topic was solidarity. We discussed three readings and focused mainly on two: Mohanty's Under Western Eyes Revisited and a short piece by Kiran Asher and Priti Ramamurthy.

We began with a brief overview and summary of Mohanty's piece. Some important points:

Solidarity transcends the local: What stands out in Mohanty's piece is her notion of a common feminist project that is based on shared values. She does not privilege the local against the systematic (p.224).

Critique of (liberal) Multiculturalism: Mohanty argues that liberal notions of multiculturalism ignore the power hierarchies between groups and tend to serve capitalist interests (p.226).

Critique of Globalization: The analysis of globalization is one of the central concerns of Mohanty in this piece. She argues that globalization has led to a recolonization of women's bodies and their labor.

Solidarity as pedagogy: Mohanty distinguishes between three different types of pedagogy that discuss women of color feminism in western academia. The first form ("Feminist-as-tourist-model") is the Eurocentric perspective of viewing of third world women as victims (of their own culture). The second type (Feminist-as-explorer-model) overcomes eurocentrism but falls into cultural relativism and fails to link the women's struggles with each other and ends up being an "apology for the exercise of power" (p.242).  It is only the model of "Feminist Solidarity" that assumes "a comparative focus and analysis of the directionality of power no matter what the subject of the women’s studies course is"and is truly attentive to power (ibid.).

We discussed a lot of questions, but here are some of them:

- How can we go beyond the local without falling into a false universalism?

- Is Mohanty's focus on anti-capitalism/anti-globalization struggles marginalizing other forms of struggle and oppression?

- What are the limits to solidarity? Can we envision solidarity with groups whose goals are different and maybe in conflict with ours? What happens to solidarity when different groups seem to have nothing in common? Can commonalities always be found or built through conversation and negotiation?

It was the last question that brought us to a discussion of "incommensurability". Is there such a thing as "radical alterity" between different social groups? We will continue our conversation next week and investigate these questions with a focus on religious experience.