Paper short abstract:

This paper aims to uncover forms, visions of solidarity actions in Hungary during the first wave of coronavirus pandemic. We will investigate the conceptual opportunities to refine the modalities of being political instead of separating the political and the apolitical forms of civic engagement.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the nature of solidarity work during the coronavirus and also the solidarity actors’ aspirations and visions to initiate social transformations. The research which informs this article was conducted by a team of scholars affiliated with the Institute for Minority Studies at the Centre of Social Sciences, Budapest.

Critical social science passionately tries to differentiate between the politically salient and the apolitical helping actions. These accounts attribute significantly less social and moral value to the latter and view apolitical assistance as contributing to social inequalities and the existing power structures. There is no agreement over what counts as political and apolitical, however, actions that meet basic human needs tend to be interpreted as apolitical, similarly to activities by institutionalized civil society actors which cooperate with the state. We discovered various forms of solidarity that practiced empathy, enacted new sociabilities, and reflected upon various societal problems. Even if they produced social capital for the helpers or yielded to paid assignment, it did not undermine the political potentials of the engagement and did not coalesce in the logic of the market, competition, and individual ownership. In reverse, most observed solidarity acts were aspired by the duty to care.

These modalities of solidarity engagements contributed to shaping up new commons, at least for the extraordinary time of the pandemic. We will investigate the conceptual opportunities to refine the modalities of being political instead of separating the political and the apolitical forms of civic engagement and contemplate the potentialities of transformative solidarities.