SOC30570

PLEASE NOTE: This is a 10 - TEN - ECTS module! That's twice the work of a regular module. This course MAY NOT BE FOR YOU if you are not seeking to commit to active, engaged learning practices, to attending class and completing assignments on a weekly basis.

It is a challenging course as it employs forms of learning and assessment that may be unfamiliar. Students should be open to trying out INTERACTIVE, VISUAL ARTS AND MOVEMENT-BASED FORMS of pedagogy, research and analysis, individually and collectively.

As well, engagement with the ideas and realities of solidarities, in/justices and social change require ongoing critical self- and collective reflection and exchange around personal and political power, privilege and difference, which can also be difficult to undertake.

With all this in mind, the module is designed and delivered so as to provide robust guidance to support students to explore and cultivate new skills, ways of working and social practices.

DO CONTACT ME TO DISCUSS ANY QUESTIONS OR CONCERNS IN ADVANCE OF THE TERM: alice.feldman@ucd.ie

The acceleration of profound, complex and intertwined global conflicts and planetary crises has seen the growth of collective actions that traverse ever greater expanses of social, political and geographical terrains and actors. Calls for ‘solidarity’ have become ubiquitous in the face of such challenges and it seems that the proliferation of online activist platforms now make it possible for every-body to ‘stand in solidarity with’ everyone else.

This scenario, however, belies the equally compelling, longstanding and vocal politics of representation: Who speaks and for whom?; of voice: Who is/can be heard?; of privilege: How do social and structural inequalities, power relations and positionalities among movement actors mediate movement organising?; What of the ongoing legacies of historical and ongoing colonialisms? Are 'shared interests' even possible when mobilising on unceded indigenous territories?

The ongoing failures to effectively address these fundamental and ‘difficult’ questions continue to undermine the success of even the most extraordinary mobilisations. The work of solidarity relationship-building ultimately is equal in importance and challenge as the movement campaigns themselves. In fact, the relational and political projects of mobilisation are intertwined because the politics of representation, voice and privilege are inextricably linked to the circumstances giving rise to the very injustices collective actions to transform.

This course delves into the examination of the relational dynamics, politics and practices that underpin – and often determine the course of -- social justice mobilisations. It focuses on the questions How does solidarity actually evolve? What constitutes solidary relations? In what ways can personal, political, cultural differences and circumstances – which are often vast, contradictory and in tension with each other – be negotiated and even maintained while working collectively? How can collective actors cultivate the skills of critical reflexivity necessary to effectively engage in this type of work? Its experiential and practice-led orientation focuses on the development of creatively engaged, theoretically-informed and empirically-grounded practices of solidarity relationship-building.