Paper short abstract:

This contribution is an ethnographic case study on the affective solidarity underlying the transphobic activism of a women’s collective. It shows how affect produces solidarity and feelings of belonging amongst members of the collective whilst deliberately denying solidarity to trans people.

Paper long abstract:

Whilst transphobia has had a pervasive presence within recent Euro-American history, the current surge of trans-exclusionary politics calls for efforts to comprehend the underlying affective and relational dimensions of trans hostility.

In this contribution, I will show how affective solidarity underpins and motivates transphobic activism. Based on ethnographic research in a trans-exclusionary women’s collective, I will discuss how affect produces the emic notion of ‘female solidarity’. This notion underlies practices which further affective solidarity and feelings of belonging amongst members of the collective whilst at the same time deliberately denying solidarity to trans people in general, and trans women in particular. I will show how the concept of female solidarity works to create affective boundaries around both the female subject and the feminist subject, and how solidarity is being negotiated along the defining lines of the category ’woman’.

Ultimately, I will suggest that ethnographic research focusing on the affective dimensions of solidarity and its inherent ambivalence equips us to confront anti-feminist and trans-exclusionary politics. Reflecting on the anthropologist’s position within a context of ambivalent solidarity, I will argue that it is through the thorough understanding of the ambivalence of affective solidary relations that new forms of solidarity can be envisioned.

Paper short abstract:

I will discuss how a culture of speaking publicly about emotions on social media paradoxically led to de-solidarization, aggression and silencing of positions during the first months of Russo-Ukrainian war and show the dynamics of how isolated affective ecologies formed on different social media.

Paper long abstract:

Affective cultures become extremely important during crises because they help to resituate the border between “us” and “them”, recruit new members into affective communities and strengthen the ties within them. Collective sharing of emotions form discursive norms of speaking about affect. But also normative sets of emotions are formed that often differ between even close affective communities on a same digital platform.

Since the start of Russo-Ukrainian war a paradoxical situation formed on social media. Feeling and publicly sharing emotions are considered to be a norm in social media, supported by therapy culture and “new sincerety”. Yet the sets of normative emotions and discoursive practices to express them became so unstable that every attempt to explicate emotion led to a dispute, and rather to exclusion and trauma than inclusion into an affective community.

Basing on analysis of other 4 mln texts in social media and a set of 32 interviews, I shall discuss how people developed the practices of talking about their emotions – and of their political views through emotions during the first months of the war, and how these texts became managed, censured, and suppressed both by their authors and other people around them on social media, how the idea of the right for emotion” and subsequent inequality of emotion was formed and how pre-war traditions of publicly speaking about emotions led to de-solidarization and ruining of social ties during the war, forming isolated, varied, and fluid affective ecologies online.

Paper short abstract:

Drawing on Sarah Ahmed's (2003) concept of "affective economies", this paper examines the material and affective processes through which a broad white political constituency was formed in support of the redevelopment of a traditional retail market in east London.

Paper long abstract:

Britain’s vast array of post-war social housing estates are currently being redeveloped in a process known as ‘estate regeneration’. But while there has been much written about the class dynamics of regeneration, in terms of ‘gentrification’ (Gonzalez and Waley 2012; Watt 2021), there has been much less consideration of the ways in which class inequalities and solidarities intersect with those of race, and particularly whiteness. Through a focus on the redevelopment of a traditional retail market and social housing estate in Poplar, east London, this paper shows how whiteness is fundamental to the forms of solidarity that arose in contestation around the redevelopment. I examine how a white political constituency was mobilised in support of the regeneration proposals - and against an opposing campaign led by predominantly Bangladeshi traders. Drawing on Sara Ahmed’s (2003) concept of affective economies, I analyse the material and affective processes through which this white constituency was formed. I show how racism and a negative desire to exclude was an important element of this. But I also show how, through the ways in which discourses and practices of heritage constructed the problem of the market’s material and decline, a broader white constituency (beyond those who articulated explicitly racist sentiments) was mobilised in support. The campaign in support of the regeneration proposals was therefore the product of “multiple nostalgias” (Berliner 2012; Balthazar 2017) but these must not be seen as entirely discreet but rather as connected by a racial logic.

Paper short abstract:

This paper explores what can be learned about intergenerational solidarity, intergenerational hostility, and affective relations via the lived experiences of Brexit Britain and the coronavirus pandemic from the perspective of interlocuters under 30 and over 60 - about each other.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the affective registers of intergenerational solidarity and intergenerational hostility via the lens of everyday experience of Brexit and of the coronavirus pandemic. This contemporary era has been the most tumultuous period in post-war British history. It has provoked deeply emotional responses linked to senses of belonging, not belonging, trust, connection, fear, hope, and division. Here, I am particularly interested in examining what my research interlocuters (during two periods of fieldwork between 2018-2020 and 2020-2021 over six field sites in England) in their late teens, twenties and early thirties had to say about ‘the old’, and what interlocuters in their sixties, seventies, and eighties had to say about ‘the young’, when reflecting on their everyday experiences of Brexit and of the covid-19 pandemic. I consider these dynamics within an existing sociocultural framework that is already predicated on a valorization of youth and a denigration of later life, and draw inspiration from Lutz who writes how “attention to the everyday emotional relations of people” (2017: 186) can be “a route to a grounded understanding of how political and economic changes affect communities of people living together” (2017: 184). What, I ask, can these two extraordinary and overlapping events help us better learn about intergenerational solidarity, intergenerational conflict, and the work of affect in how we imagine social relations through intergenerational time?

Paper short abstract:

This paper will report on research into community ‘gifting and sharing’ initiatives in the UK, involving food, clothing and household items. The ‘unwanted gift’ is focused on, as a way to trace a critical account of such practices, and the possibilities and limitations for solidarity that arise.

Paper long abstract:

This paper will report on research into new forms of community ‘gifting and sharing’ initiatives in three areas of the UK. Such projects focus on the provisioning of everyday items for those in need, such as food, clothing, hygiene products and baby equipment, using both digital and material spaces. The projects have arisen especially in contexts of austerity, poverty, the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis and during the Covid-19 pandemic. The rationalities and discourses surrounding the project vary, but they often involve emotional registers of kindness and compassion for those in need. However, ethnography of such spaces reveal often uneasy online and offline interactions, prompting a move away from a ‘magical’ account of kindness (Phillips and Adams 2009) to a more ‘troubling’ analysis (Lampinen 2021) involving asymmetries of power, needs and vulnerabilities. The paper focuses on the presence of the ‘unwanted gift’ in a number of community spaces, as a way to trace a more critical account of gifting and sharing practices, and the possibilities and limitations for solidarity within them.

Paper short abstract:

This paper examines the activism of South Korean citizens who have not been directly affected by the Sewol Ferry Disaster, yet have stood in solidarity with the bereaved families' search for truth and justice. I consider the ethics and affect of 'besideness' as the basis of this solidary relation.

Paper long abstract:

The sinking of the Korean ferry, Sewol, on April 16th, 2014, claimed 304 lives, 250 of whom were high school students on a fieldtrip. The Disaster, broadcasted real-time, incited a widespread movement founded on condolence for the victims, and a collective determination that ‘things have to change’. Bringing together bereaved families, progressive activists, and ordinary citizens previously far from ‘political’, Sewol activism has witnessed mobilization of a scale unprecedented for a post-disaster activism in Korea.

Based on 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork, I reflect on the activism of my non-bereaved interlocutors, who have stood in solidarity with bereaved families’ demand for truth and justice. In particular, I ask how activists who have not been directly affected by the disaster have come to devote themselves to Sewol activism, to the extent of completely having reorganized their lives around this movement.

I unpack the complicities and responsibilities that drive the activism of my non-bereaved interlocutors, and their commitment to witnessing the pain and grief of the bereaved. The paper suggests that it is affective presence with and for the bereaved family members that drives the non-bereaved citizens to stand in solidarity, both at the frontlines of political rallies, and at the quiet backdrops behind such events of pronounced impact. Focusing on what my interlocutors call ‘gyeot’ or ‘side’, I consider the ethical and affective potentials of solidarity founded on, and performed through this ‘besideness’.

Paper short abstract:

The paper calls for re-examining notions of solidarity and sentiments in the context of university friendships. This involves critically looking at ‘hostel sentiments’ and how they affect relationships between and among junior and senior year residents in university hostels in Northeast India.

Paper long abstract:

This paper looks at the relationship between hierarchy, sentiments, and friendships among women students in Northeast India. Based on staying in an all-women university accommodation (hostel) as a part of my doctoral fieldwork at Gauhati University in Northeast India, I have observed how sentiments have both segregating and unifying effects. 'Senti'—as sentiment is popularly called by students is perceived to be binding all the residents together in a hostel. However, senti is imposed upon the juniors by forcing them to follow the unwritten, unjust hostel rules. The hostel senti creates a façade of hostel solidarity while covering up the hierarchical relationship between junior and senior year residents. Questioning the unfair rules may lead to consequences ranging from subtle insults to physical abuse. Therefore, when it is about resisting these rules, juniors find themselves divided into those who do not support the rules, those who adjust to the rules, and those who become close with the seniors through flattery and align with the seniors in monitoring their peers. The seniors seem to be united while exercising power over the juniors. However, at an individual level, many seniors disapprove of this hierarchy. These schisms, at times, bring a few juniors and seniors closer, sharing similar senti while transcending hierarchy. The hostel sentiment is, thus, created through interpersonal relationships rather than an overarching hostel space. This senti between women leads to new friendships and recreates hierarchical relationships while facilitating continuity of hierarchy in the university hostels.

Paper short abstract:

The paper analyzes the term solidarity within Chilean civil society delving into the role the term plays in the process and meaning of political participation among migrant organizations. I argue their actions of taking care of each other is a central part of their citizenship narrative.

Paper long abstract:

Until recently, Chile was not considered a country of immigration, increase and diversification of immigration has changed this scenario. In parallel to the upsurge of nationalist narratives and racist attitudes among the local population, there is also an increase of migrant and pro-migrants organizations that are based on mutual aid and collective action principles. The proposed paper is based on ethnographic work with migrants organizations in Chile, paying special attention to what their participation means to them. I argue that through their political involvement they challenge and re-conceptualize the notion of citizenship within the overall Chilean democratization process.

Migrant organizations in Chile are diverse and have drawn different purposes for themselves. Among them I found a strong regard for mutual aid, where political participation takes the form of caring for one another as a moral imperative. By analyzing the genealogy of the term solidarity in civil society in Chile, in this paper I aim to better understand the rejection of my participants to use the term solidarity to refer to their work. In short; they consider solidarity makes their actions look as if they were made among strangers.

The relevance of exposing and fostering their way of being together, along with performing their solidarity repertoires (trying to distance themselves from the stereotypes and stigmatization the host society has imprinted on them as migrants) is a central part of what I see in their citizenship narratives.

Paper short abstract:

In present-day welfare contexts, the willingness to extend solidarity is oftentimes accompanied by expectations of reciprocation. This paper explores solidarity's ambivalence by focusing on the affective responses to non-reciprocity among social professionals in a Belgian housing cooperative.

Paper long abstract:

In present-day welfare contexts, the willingness to extend solidarity is oftentimes accompanied by expectations of reciprocation. Many civil society initiatives focus on active participation by the communities they work with. Such participation is taken to be a sign of gratitude: taking part in (voluntary) activities becomes a way of ‘giving something in return’. But what happens when such reciprocal expectations are not met, when reciprocity 'fails'?

This paper explores the ambivalence of solidarity by focusing on the affective responses that non-reciprocity engenders. Based on ethnographic research with a social cooperative in Belgium which provides housing to families with a migration background, it discusses how the organization's social professionals negotiate feelings of hurt and dissatisfaction in response to what they perceive as 'failed' reciprocity, as well as the moral dilemmas this poses for their practice. Through an exploration of the ambiguities encountered in everyday social work practices, this paper asks then how affective responses to non-reciprocity impact on the possibility for solidarities to emerge.

Paper short abstract:

This paper focuses on the development of Roma-led religious humanitarian projects, conducted by Nordic European Roma missionaries in Eastern Europe, and the emergence of affective forms of trans-national Roma solidarities, embedded within the Evangelical ethos of social development.

Paper long abstract:

Based on long-term ethnographic fieldwork conducted with Pentecostal Roma in Finland and Romania, this paper looks at the ways in which the development of a Roma-led religious humanitarianism becomes a field of continuous emotional connection and spiritual socialisation. More specifically, this paper takes both an ethnographic and theoretical focus on the practice of transnational missionary work led by Finnish Roma Pentecostal believers among Roma in Romania and the affective solidarities emerging from these trans-national encounters. As a key part of their believer identity, Finnish Roma missionaries engage in both national and transnational projects, aimed to Evangelise Roma communities in Eastern European countries. These projects present a discourse of spiritual revivalism and social intervention, with the setting up of several developmental projects focused on children as "the future" of Roma communities. However, in the process of missionary encounters, different meanings of affective labour and affective connections come centre stage, wherein both missionaries and missionised engage in complex (and at times contrasting) conversations concerning the shape of their believer identities. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to underscore missionary practice as a space of affective solidarity, as well as a site of continuous negotiation, by emphasising the contradictions embedded within religious humanitarian agendas.