Groundless solidarity designates a political orientation that is based on extending support for activist struggles that occur outside of the supporters’ own immediate realm of interest.
Gloria Anzaldua
Rosi Braidotti
Richard Day
Diane Elam
Donna Haraway
Chandra Mohanty
Subcomandante Marcos
Anti-Racist Feminism
Cross-Issue Solidarity
Derridean deconstruction
Ecofeminism
Infinite responsibility
Intersectional analysis
Anti-Racist Action (ARA)
Colombia Solidarity and Accompaniment Project
Direct Action Network (DAN)
Independent Media Centre (IMC)
Indigenous Peoples Solidarity Movement
International Solidarity Networks (e.g. Mexico, Refuser, Iranian Workers’)
Just Cause Law Collective
No One Is Illegal (NOII)
People’s Global Action (PGA)
Solidarity Across Borders Campaign
Via Campesina
World Social Forum
Zapatistas (EZLN)
ZNet/ Z Magazine
Any practice has the potential to further groundless solidarity. For example,
Anti-Racist Action employs direct action tactics in order to challenge racism,
sexism, or anti-gay bigotry; the Just Cause Law Collective provides legal aid
to activists involved in a number of struggles; People’s Global Action
acts as a network for the spread of information that facilitates the linking
of grassroots movements.
Only a small number of references to groundless solidarity exist in the literature.
It appears primarily, and it seems exclusively, in academic texts which attempt
to work out a coalitional politics informed by Derridean deconstruction. It
seems, also, that the term has been first introduced by feminist scholars and
is currently being applied and developed by social movement theorists.
Diane Elam uses the term ‘groundless solidarity’ to introduce the
possibility of political action without a common ground upon which political
struggle is to hinge. The rejection of a common ground is anticipated in the
denial of a universal identity, which from the perspective of poststructuralist
philosophy depends on problematic essentialist assumptions that must be interrogated,
if not dispelled. It may seem paradoxical that groundless solidarity has been
developed by feminist scholars. After all, much of feminism has been concerned
with defining and theorizing the female subject in whose name political struggle
is to take place. To the extent that groundless solidarity denies the possibility
of identifying with any subject and to the extent that it is based upon a “suspicion
of identity as the essential grounding for meaningful political action”,
(1) groundless solidarity does distance itself from traditional approaches such
as radical feminism or feminist standpoint epistemology.
Nevertheless, groundless solidarity expands the domain of action by actively
denying the possibility of a stable, presocial, unchanging subject. As Richard
Day observes, “the impossibility of a purely universal identity does not
relieve us from the necessity of attempting to be in solidarity with others
-- note that I say solidarity, not identity. Solidarity occurs across identifications”.
(2) Groundless solidarity, therefore, ‘works’ when we acknowledge
the multiplicity of struggles (and identities) which may not be directly tied
to our own, but which we choose to support anyways. Thus, for feminists this
may entail building links with anti-capitalist movements further “[pushing]
the envelope beyond a specific feminist solidarity… [towards] anti-oppression”.
(3)
As such, groundless solidarity depends on the recognition that there is no fundamental
axis of oppression (i.e. classism, sexism, racism), but that struggles for anti-oppression
have to take place on many levels. Such an attitude may be read in the mission
statement of the Kansas City Direct Action group, which proclaims: “Although
we are anti-authoritarian… we do not intent to emphasize a single political
philosophy” (4). Kansas City Direct Action demonstrates the logic of groundless
solidarity by not assuming that they have a complete political analysis, or
that their struggle is the struggle. This attitude can also be observed in the
group No One Is Illegal (NOII). As Richard Day notes, “[a]lthough many
of the people involved in NOII self-identify as anarchists, this identification
is not central to their participation in Solidarity Without Borders, and usually
goes unmarked… that is, NOII is directly involved in numerous activities
of solidarity, without attempting to ‘organize’ anyone other than
themselves”. (5) From this it can be seen that “the concept of groundless
solidarity has value for struggles on all axes of subordination, and especially
for making links across these struggles.” (6)
Related to groundless solidarity is the concept of infinite responsibility which,
argues Richard Day, “serves as its necessary complement.” (7) Infinite
responsibility implies a voluntary set of ethics adopted, usually by activists
of privileged background, against a universal-normative moral structure. Although
Diane Elam does not work with the concept of infinite responsibility, she succinctly
expresses its orientation as “not a moralism but an ethical activism.”
(8) Such a stand requires the conscious effort of having to comprehend ‘the
other’ without ever allowing oneself to assume that one has reached the
end-point of this task. It implies a willingness to listen, which is necessary
for the possibility of establishing groundless solidarity.
ZNet. Available at: http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
G. Anzaldua. (1981). This Bridge Called My Back: Writings by radical women of
color. C. Moraga and G. Anzaldúa (Eds). Watertown, Mass: Kitchen Table,
Women of Color Press.
G. Anzaldua. (2002). This Bridge Called My Home: Radical visions for transformation.
New York: Routledge.
R. J. F. Day. (forthcoming). Affinities. Pluto Press.
D. Elam. (1994). Feminism and Deconstruction. New York: Routledge.
A. Müller. (2001). "Feminine Misogyny and Sisterly Undercurrents:
Cases of Groundless Solidarity in Fay Weldon's Remember Me." Engendering
Realism and Postmodernism: Contemporary Women Writers in Britain. B. Neumeier.
(Ed). Postmodern Studies 32. New York: Rodopi, 147-57.
Notes:
(1). D. Elam. (1994). Feminism and Deconstruction. New York: Routledge. 69.
(2). R. J. F. Day. (forthcoming). Affinities. Pluto Press.
(3). Ibid.
(4). Available at: http://www.kcdirectaction.net/
(5). R. J. F. Day. (forthcoming). Affinities.
(6). Ibid.
(7). Ibid.
(8). D. Elam. (1994). Feminism and Deconstruction. New York: Routledge. 106.