# Reflections on Transformative Solidarity

> "Do we want to come up with principles of how to act in solidarity with each other when... system of power try to make us compete?" - [Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha 2024, p.162](https://search.worldcat.org/title/The-future-is-disabled-:-prophecies-love-notes-and-mourning-songs/oclc/1294919387)

Asked in the context of a book titled "The Future is Disabled", this question resonated with my interest in exploring how to participate in cross-disability solidarity within my personal networks.

More recently, I adopted the term *transformative solidarity*, to refer to **acts of solidarity that require allowing ourselves to be transformed as we relate across difference to transform global power structures together**.

Prompted by calls for cross-movement solidarity, I began puzzling over a follow-up question; one I'm not yet sure of my answers to.

**How can we practice transformative acts of solidarity, while surviving the systems of oppressive power that try to divide us?**

The following is my in-progress exploration of some possible responses to this question.

## Solidarity as a contested concept

Before turning to this question directly, I want to explore how transformative solidarity relates to various uses of the broader concept. [As with many concepts used across multiple contexts](https://hackmd.io/@Teq/concepts), this is complicated.

Fortunatly, Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix offer an excelled exploration of a wide range of variable associations that have accrued around the concept of solidarity in their book ['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/).

> "Solidarity is not always a positive force or driver of progress and change: these bonds can be neutral, reactionary, or transformative, depending on the community and context" ([Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 2025, p.xix](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/))

To illustrate some of this variability, I'll outline two distinct contexts within which the concept of solidarity is used.

#### Solidarity as a way to connect across shared experiences

Calls for solidarity have often been used to connect people who share a particular experience, identity, or set of interests. For groups of people who experience marginalisation, this has been an important strategy in building the collective power needed to resist violent oppression.

One challange with this approach is the risk of being coopted by reactionary forces: with calls for solidarity focusing on unifying people around a singular shared identity at the expense of all others and perpetuating broader systems of domination and exclusion.

> " Reactionary solidarity draws hard boundaries, creating an “other” towards which it can be hostile, aggressive, or violent." [Astra Taylor, 2024](https://nonprofitquarterly.org/solidarity-challenges-the-status-quo-a-conversation-with-leah-hunt-hendrix-and-astra-taylor/)

To mitigate this risk, acts of solidarity between those wth shared experiences needs to be balanced with building the relational conditions for acting in solidarity across difference.

> "I often think of cross-disability solidarity - the practice of being in solidarity with people with other kinds of disability then the ones we currently have - as being a process of learning a new language. Just like several different languages share root words... many disabilities share core experiences... But there are still so many things we don't automatically know about each other, some languages we have to learn from scratch... We stumble when we assume that because we are oppressed by the same people, we don't have to do this work as part of our struggle to get everyone free" [Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha 2024, p.292-293](https://search.worldcat.org/title/The-future-is-disabled-:-prophecies-love-notes-and-mourning-songs/oclc/1294919387)

> "Despite the compelling vision for unity among the working class, numerous challenges persist in our pursuit of solidarity. The deep-seated historical grievances arising from colonialism, systemic racism, and class exploitation cannot be overlooked. ... These legacies often engender distrust between different groups, complicating the path forward. It is essential that advocates acknowledge and address these historical contexts to forge genuine connections based on mutual understanding and respect." - [Anthony Lindsay 2025](https://www.muslimworldreport.com/news/opinion/2025-03-16-building-bridges-the-urgent-call-for-working-class-solidarity/)

#### Solidarity as a way to meet mutual obligations

Another use of the concept of solidarity draws attention to our mutual obligations to each other within a specific context.

Within the context of calling for the collective liberation, appealing to our sense of mutual obligation can help build recognition that our experiences of oppression are interdependent. This approach can also highlight the varying ways we each owe each other to change these conditions for the benefit of all.

> "[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?'." - [Mie Inouye, 2023](https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/from-the-editors-on-solidarity/)

> "Solidarity does not magically emerge as a result of interdependence - it depends on our ability to describe what bonds us, who we are, what has value, and how we should live together" - [Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 2025, p.xxviii](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/)

However, being guided solely by mutual obligation can obscure the uneven conditions of mutuality. This is especially risky for those benefiting from dominant systems learning to act in solidarity with groups being oppressed by these same systems. In these contexts, expecting to be told how to meet our oblications and/or expecting credit when we think we've meet an obligation can add extractive labour to those already marginalised, reproducing the systems of power that divide us by.

> "The risks of an ally who provides support or solidarity (usually on a temporary basis) in a fight are much different than that of an accomplice. When we fight back or forward, together, becoming complicit in a struggle towards liberation, we are accomplices." - [Rudy, 2014](https://www.indigenousaction.org/accomplices-not-allies-abolishing-the-ally-industrial-complex/)

Meeting our mutual obligations to others requires building authentic relationships; listening to what those most impacted by systems of oppression choose to share; learning as much as possible; and taking responsibility for deciding to act on the most effective leverage points for changing the systems that we have access to.

> "Solidarity with Palestine does not mean doing what you are told, but rather it requires individuals and communities to be conceptual, conscientious, and interpretive - which can be effective only if there is some deep listening involved" [Sarah Schulman 2025 pp.51](https://vpl.overdrive.com/media/11291397)

> "Until we are all able to accept the interlocking, interdependent nature of systems of domination and recognize specific ways each system is maintained, we will continue to act in ways that undermine our individual quest for freedom and collective liberation struggle." – [bell hooks, 1994](https://commonslibrary.org/bell-hooks-ideas-for-social-justice/)

## Transformative Solidarity

Rather than attempt to reconcile the multiple set of associations carried-along by the concept of solidarity, the qualified concept of _transformative_ solidarity refines a subset of these associations by drawing attention to *how* acting in solidarity contributes to change.

> "Transformative solidarity is both a means and an end, the process of struggling together ... towards the fundamental fellowship of humankind, connecting us with others despite apparent differences"- [Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 2025, p.xi](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/)

This qualified concept of _transformative_ solidarity offers us several avenues for understanding *how* practiceing transformative acts of solidarity can help us both resist division, and build the relationships we need to move beyond surviving systems of oppressive power, to changing them.

#### Resisting division

Pactising transformative solidarity can help us resist the divisive tactics of oppressive power structures.

> **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/)

> Transfromative solidarity involves extending one's self-interest; it creates new communities across social distinctions, class divides, and militarized boarded." ([Astra Taylor and Leah Hunt-Hendrix, 2025, p.xxi](https://commonslibrary.org/solidarity-the-past-present-and-future-of-a-world-changing-idea/))

#### Relating across difference

Viewing _transformative solidarity_ as a process of _relating across difference_ aligns highlights that acting in solidarity with movements for transformative collective liberation 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/)

> "[Tansformative justice](https://commonslibrary.org/transformative-approaches-to-conflict-resolution/) 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)

## Sidenotes

Elsewhere, while there is 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...

## Discussion Prompts:

> "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)

- 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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{%hackmd /E20qKLmUSK2xloQxRNbdYw %}