Social Sciences Lecture | Dr. habil. Mareike Gebhardt › view all

Deconstructing Solidarity

Dr. habil. Mareike Gebhardt on "Deconstructing Solidarity".

Abstract

Traditional theories of solidarity are based on an idea of similarity that, as the lectures shows, leads to masculinist semantics, nationalist imaginations, and racist politics. Drawing on radical democratic theory (RDT) and Jacques Derrida’s notion of the “im-possible”, the lecture follows a deconstructive approach to open an understanding of solidarity as directed towards ‘the Others.’ However, the political subjects of RDT remain without bodies. This is why, in a second step, the lecture develops RDT’s arguments further by referring to queer, Black feminist, and postcolonial approaches that allow us to uncover androcentric, racist, and (hetero-)sexist residues in solidarity. I argue that it is in the example of civil Search and Rescue in the Mediterranean that we see show the ambivalences of solidarity – on a spectrum from colonial continuities to emancipatory politics – unfold. Through this example together with problematizing the inequalities of solidarizability, the lecture begins to formulate a critical theory of solidarity toward an intersectional reiteration.

About

Dr. habil. Mareike Gebhardt is prinicipal investigator of the research group "Navigating the Mediterranean: Search and Rescue Missions and the Dissensus on Democracy" and managing director of the Center for European Gender Studies at the University of Muenster.

The Lecture is orgnized by the GlobaLab Cluster initiative and part of the Lecture Series "Bremen Conversations on Global Solidarity"