Can Global Social Movements Produce Solidarity Across Borders?

Can people feel solidarity with distant strangers? And can this solidarity drive global egalitarian or cosmopolitan theories of justice?

The motivation critique of cosmopolitanism is based on the idea that the solidarity necessary to sustain duties of justice can only exist within bounded communities like the nation or the state. However, this neglects long standing traditions of transnational solidarity between oppressed people.

This video looks at radical trade unions and internationalism as well as the indigenous rights movement. These are practical examples of building solidarity between subaltern agents which has largely been neglected in the debate on global ethics and distributive justice.

To answer these questions we look at the examples of trade unions in the Global South and the indigenous rights movement.

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Reading List

Gwilym David Blunt, Global Poverty, Injustice, and Resistance (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019)

Todd A. Eisenstadt, Politics, Identity, and Mexico’s Indigenous Rights Movement (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011)

Samanthi J. Gunawardana, ‘What Does Transnational Labour Organising and Solidarity Mean for Sri Lankan Free Trade Zone Workers?’, in Global Restructuring, Labour, and the Challenges for Transnational Solidarity, ed. Andreas Bieler and Ingemar Lindberg (London: Routledge, 2011)

Thomas D. Hall and James V. Fenelon, Indigenous Peoples and
Globalization: Resistance and Revitalisation (New York: Routledge, 2016)

Rohini Hensman, Workers, Unions, and Global Capitalism: Lessons from India (New York:
Columbia University Press, 2011)

Immanuel Ness, Southern Insurgency: The Coming of the Global Working Class (London: Pluto Press, 2016)

Richard Price, Maroon Societies: Rebel Slave Communities in the Americas (London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1996)

James C. Scott, The Art of Not Being Governed: An Anarchist History of Upland Southeast Asia (London: Yale University Press, 2011)

Chapters

0:00-0:19: Civil Resistance + Solidarity = Social Movements for Cosmopolitan Justice
0:19-8:20: Trade Unions and Solidarity
8:20-13:19: The Indigenous Rights Movement
13:19-14:16: Is Civil Resistance Enough?
14:16-14:20: Credits
14:20-14:36 THEN WHO WAS CAPITALIST?

Credits

Music:

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0

Photos:

Julian Stallabrass, Line to search delegates, Zapatista Encuentro, 1996
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Julian Stallabrass, Zapatista Encuentro, 1996
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Julian Stallabrass, The Zapatista Encuentro, Oventic, 1996
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Ralf Steinberger, Ovens in an Italian factory building abandoned 40 years ago
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

Sławek Zawadzki, Closed quartz mine
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0

Nick from Bristol, UK, Miners' Strike Rally in London in 1984
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

FIFTY, South African Mine Fire Traps
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Robert Scoble, Workers perform final testing and QA before sending drives off to customers on its 2.5-inch notebook lines
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0

User:Gnangarra, Entering the Inner harbour
Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 au

Alexlarab, Fábrica de papel de Kimberly Clark en Morelia
Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0

[cillavision]

grateful to have this sent my way. Gonna dive in to the rest of your channel, Dr 🤘

[RealJoeSlice]

Nice. The algorithm sent me here and Im glad it did :)