# Transformative Solidarity

I've recently adopted the term *transformative solidarity* to describe a practice of relating across difference to transform global power structures, while being transformed along the way.

To appreciate the potential uses of this qualified term it may help to position it in relation to the broader solidarity concept. As Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix outlined in ['Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-changing Idea'](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/), a wide range of variable associations have accrued around the more general concept of solidarity over time.

As I understand it, while the concept of solidarity has often being used as a tool for building collective power to resist oppression, each of these different ways of using the concept of solidarity are appropriate for some contexts and not others.

For example, the general concept of solidarity can be used to motivate acts that are based on mutual obligations. Recognising conditions of mutual obligation can help draw attention to the systems of reciprocity within which we are all connected. However,when those who benefits from a given set of dominant systems rely only on mutual obligation to guide acts of solidarity with people directly oppressed by these same systems, we can obscure the uneven contexts within which we our mutual obligations exist, and undermine the conditions for reciprocity.

The concept of solidarity is also used to build power amongst people who share a particular experience, identity, or perspective. This has been an important strategy for marginalised peoples surviving violent oppression. One of the risks of within-group calls for solidarity is the survival pressures towards unifying people around a singular shared identity at the expense of all others. For example, when within-group solidarity is pursued without also building solidarity across difference, we risk reactionary contributions to broader systems of domination and exclusion; undermining the conditions needed for [commoning](https://commonslibrary.org/practising-commoning/).

I don't want to get drawn to far into these variable uses of the concept of solidarity. I am more interested in exploring how the qualified concept of *transformative* solidarity can function as a tool for helping us practice building relationships across difference in ways that support the broader shared struggle towards collective liberation.

One way transformative solidarity can be useful is in highlighting the possibility of 'building a bigged we' with which to change our socities:

> **Transformative solidarity** has porous boundaries, it’s aimed at inclusion and expands people’s identities to build a bigger 'we'. This project can ultimately change not only people’s idea of themselves but larger social and political arrangements." - [Astra Taylor, 2024](https://nonprofitquarterly.org/solidarity-challenges-the-status-quo-a-conversation-with-leah-hunt-hendrix-and-astra-taylor/)

> ([Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 2025](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/))

Viewing _transformative solidarity_ as a process of _relating across difference_ aligns with broader calls to recognise that the forms of liberation we seek are interdependent.

> "If you have come to help me you are wasting your time. If you have come because your Liberation is bound together with mine, let us walk together.” - [Aboriginal activists group, Queensland, 1970s](https://nationalunitygovernment.org/content/liberation-and-you-are-aboriginal-land)

> "[As Fred Morton puts it] 'The coalition emerges out of your recognition that it’s fucked up for you, in the same way that we’ve already recognized that it’s fucked up for us. I don’t need your help. I just need you to recognize that this shit is killing you, too, however much more softly, you stupid motherfucker, you know?'... Moten’s emphasis is on shared 'recognition', not shared conditions of domination or oppression." [Mie Inouye, 2023](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-on-solidarity/)

> "[Statements of solidarity connect] the common roots of systemic injustices across movements, while acknowledging that we all hold distinct and similar histories and experiences of dealing with oppression... articulate visions of co-liberation" - [Building Movement Project, 2023](https://commonslibrary.org/writing-a-solidarity-statement-considerations-and-process-questions/)

Focusing on transformative solidarity also helps amplify the broader discourse arguing that any act in solidarity with transformative co-liberation visions requires an openness to being transformed ourselves, along the way.

> "...what is solidarity if not the choice to bump up against other people, figuratively, if not literally, and allow oneself to be changed by the impact ...solidarity becomes possible when we embrase organizing as a mechanism of political education, a way of being transformed, for everyone involved - dominated and dominator" - [Mie Inouye, 2023 pp.20, 23-24](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-on-solidarity/)

> "Collaboration in solidarity asks individuals not simply to work together on equal terms and to share equally the products of commoning, but also to be formed as subjects of sharing. Subjects of sharing ... accept their incompleteness [while] being formed and transformed without everybody being reduced to fit to perpetuated role taxonomies" - [Stavros Stavrides 2016](https://stavrosstavrides.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Stavrides-Stavros_Common-Space-The-City-as-Commons.pdf)

> "...seeing the conditions of other people's lives as relevant to our own creates ongoing insight and revelation, bringing us closer to reality. Solidarity is a transformative vision of the real... [Acting in solidarity requires being able to] offer and receive solidarity simultaneously" [Sarah Schulman 2025 pp.41, 71](https://vpl.overdrive.com/media/11291397)

One pathway for these transformation processes is engaging with the discomfits and [inevitable conflicts](https://commonslibrary.org/conflict-is-inevitable-knowledge-roundup/) of _relating across differences_ as we walk together towards collective liberation.

> Solidarity offers "a model of organising that embraces conflict as a form of political education and personal transformation... What seems crucial to this effort is not that everyone involved in today’s movements share the same motivations or even the same objective interests but that everyone have something at stake that they feel viscerally" [Mie Inouye, 2023](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-on-solidarity/)

This also pathway resonates with [tansformative justice](https://commonslibrary.org/transformative-approaches-to-conflict-resolution/)

> "Transformative justice describes a systems approach to identifying root causes of conflict and responding to these as a community – including developing various harm-reduction processes to interpersonal violence within communities at the grassroots level rather than relying on punishment, incarceration, or policing." - Beyond Survival, edited by Ejeris Dixon and Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha (2020)

Elsewhere, while there is begining to be some overlap between the concept notions of collective liberation as a goal of solidarity and interest in [Solidarity Economies](/uvXhU3GrR7GAX4qENLAPhQ), I've yet to see a the emphasis on relating across differences by engaging with generating conflict integrated into proposals for emerging solidarity economies...

As explored in [Collective Solidarity Practices](/owKyyTJYReGj7Xf3de-yTA), building authentic relationships that position us to hear what those most impacted by systems of oppresssion, requires choosing to share, learn, and intervene. It means taking responsibility for acting; deciding the most effective point of leverage within a sphere of influence that might help change the systems, rather then demanding extractive labour by deferentialy waiting to be told what to do OR paternalistically acting 'for' others rather than with them.

## Discussion Prompts:

- Where do we feel discomfit in our bodies as we engage across our differences to build pathways towards collective liberation?
- What can help us stay with these feelings and learn from differences we find challenging?
- How can practising relating across difference help us build collective power?
- How can we build capacity for feeling challenged by acting in transformative solidarity?
- Is there any value in using the term *transformative solidarity*, or is it better to avoid the term *solidarity* altogeher (and focus instead on describing the act of relating across difference to work together towards collective liberation)?

## 

## Resource-list

- ['Solidarity: The Past, Present, and Future of a World-changing Idea' 2024](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/)
- ['The Fantasy and Necessity of Solidarity' 2025](https://vpl.overdrive.com/media/11291397)
- ['On Solidarity' 2023](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-on-solidarity/)

---

Date created: 2025
Version: 1.0
Created for: personal use
Attribution: created by [E. T. Smith](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/Bio) on unceded lands of the [Wurundjeri people](https://www.wurundjeri.com.au/).
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