Europe’s Crisis: Reconsidering Solidarity with Leela Gandhi and Judith Butler

Abstract

No abstract (available).

Solidarity in crisis? Community responses to refugees and forced migrants in the Greek islands

“…Despite being a formally stated principle governing relationships between EU member states (Lahusen, 2020; Lahusen et al, 2018), solidarity was repeatedly rejected during the recent financial crisis. The EU’s inability to demonstrate solidarity, or even to consistently respect refugees’ and forced migrants’ human rights, exposes the fragile origins of an idea “that is based on the negative invocation against war between the member states, and fails to reconcile economics with politics and ethics” (Covi, 2016). Unsurprisingly, the EU’s “incapacity to express social solidarity for its weakest members such as Greece and other Eurozone states while pursuing economic solidarity for the strongest ones, matches its incapability to enact solidarity when faced with the repeating tragedy of migrants and refugees, weak constituencies of labor and asylum seekers coming from the outside” (Covi, 2016: 151).…”

“…The EU’s inability to demonstrate solidarity, or even to consistently respect refugees’ and forced migrants’ human rights, exposes the fragile origins of an idea “that is based on the negative invocation against war between the member states, and fails to reconcile economics with politics and ethics” (Covi, 2016). Unsurprisingly, the EU’s “incapacity to express social solidarity for its weakest members such as Greece and other Eurozone states while pursuing economic solidarity for the strongest ones, matches its incapability to enact solidarity when faced with the repeating tragedy of migrants and refugees, weak constituencies of labor and asylum seekers coming from the outside” (Covi, 2016: 151). It also conditions crowding-in effects on civic solidarity, particularly at times of accelerating crisis and when remedial actions are urgently needed (Lahusen, 2020).…”

“…To do so, we incorporate ideas from bodies of knowledge not commonly considered in theorizing solidarity, such as feminist philosophies (Butler, 2004(Butler, , 2009a(Butler, , 2015Cheah, 2006;Federici, 2012;Mohanty, 1998). In contrast to utilitarian and economic approaches, or idealistic but abstract invocations of solidarity, feminist thinking focuses on situated practices and embodied experiences (Covi, 2016;Fotaki and Daskalaki, 2020;Kenny and Fotaki, 2015). Feminist theory is well suited to addressing the current dilemmas of solidarity and reimagining its humanist foundations through the prism of relationality and shared vulnerability.…”

“…However, how "others" are defined is crucial, because solidarity rarely extends to all categories of others. It is sometimes motivated by affection and shared norms and beliefs, and sometimes by rational choice and selfinterest (Covi, 2016;Douwes et al, 2018). Although the study of solidarity is as old as the social sciences (Durkheim, 1893(Durkheim, /1997, it means different things in different disciplines, which explains its malleability and popularity (Laitinen, 2013;Liedman, 2002).…”

“…The study demonstrates how the recent EU anti-migration policies, together with the protracted effects of the EU-instigated austerity crisis, lead to the emergence of egregious inequalities on its borders, extending to issues of human rights, human dignity, and protection of life. This, we argue, is because solidarity is conceived primarily as an economic-technical concept, with weak normative commitment to the abstract and idealistic promises of equality for all that can easily be separated from its social and ethical dimensions (Banting and Kymlicka, 2017; Covi, 2016). The diminished solidarity seen in the debt management and refugee crises illustrated by the Greek case, we argue, is also core to the neoliberal ideology dominating EU policies.…”