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Contribution short abstract:

This paper explores the frictions inside transnational political movements as “productive gaps” that allow for a critical lens on the anthropology of solidarity to demonstrate how solidarity can be a possibility but also a shortcoming, especially when engaging with conflict settings from a distance.

Contribution long abstract:

This paper challenges the common portrayal of transnational solidarity as a supportive political bond, especially within leftist movements, by arguing that solidarity often emerges not from similarity but from “productive gaps.” Focusing on the "Free Nicaragua movement" in Berlin, it examines the negotiations between recent Nicaraguan political exiles, the local Nicaraguan diaspora, and elderly (former West-) German solidarity brigades following the state-led crackdown on protesters in Nicaragua in 2018. While the Berlin-based group advocated for both the claim and practice of “solidarity with Nicaragua” and managed to operate across difference, activists consistently drew on divergent political visions and convictions to define and enact this position, ranging from queer feminism over pro-Trump intervention policies to Cold War-informed Marxism.

The paper explores how these productive gaps—shaped by political, cultural, and historical contexts—lead to varying interpretations and contradictions within transnational solidarity and reinforces the understanding that political solidarity is a practice as much a political relation as a process that needs to be constantly renegotiated and reworked.