Solidarity in Action: Summer School Newsletter

We invite you to read the Solidarity Summer School Newsletter and take a peek into the dynamic process which unfolded over 3 days with 30 participants from 9 countries from Southern Africa. Solidarity in action is at the heart of the Rural Women’s Assembly (RWA). The case studies shared, illustrated in detail the many ways in which RWA at various country levels demonstrate solidarity across the region.

The school offered RWA an opportunity to reflect on the nature of its solidarity which is deeply embedded in the movement. Find a brief synthesis of key reflections and insights shared on the final day of the school:

• Reviewing undertakings of solidarity is important and necessary as it is not a set of mechanical actions but instead deeply complex. From the RWA case studies it was clear that solidarity requires multiple navigations between people and of circumstances, a deep understanding of context and ways of being and seeing.
• When solidarity action is swiftly undertaken, it is in part, as mentioned by the Rita Edwards Collective, because there are infrastructures of solidarity built over time. These infrastructures are augmented due to a pedagogy of acting-reflecting-learning-doing-building. It is useful to make this method more apparent and explicit within RWA as its solidarity actions and pooled resources are not centralised but entirely left to the discretion of RWA members, thus ensuring autonomy and agility to be in solidarity that reflect the demands on the ground.
• The enactments of solidarity as illustrated by the case studies, as well as the personal narratives, reveal that solidarity is employed regularly in the movement. It is a key feature of RWA. The preparatory process towards the school and the school itself was an important step for RWA to give analytical expression to its solidarity work. Uncovering RWAs repertoires of solidarity will be an important step in its documenting process.
• The school was an important methodological opening for RWA to not only share when they act in solidarity but to be more deliberate in documenting solidarity and begin to share with other movements their lessons, experiences and observations. Importantly, participants would like to not only share at a country membership level but ideally replicate the school. In many ways, this was is because “acting in solidarity” when not made visible might appear “natural” but it is however something engendered. Understanding the context of this is vital for RWA.
• The impact of severe climate change as well as gender based violence is a foci of solidarity for RWA. A closer unpacking of the solidarity actions could offer useful approaches and alternatives fostered by rural women in Southern Africa to overcome these structural problems and the acute asymmetry borne on rural women in the region.
• Solidarity is not charity. This is not to say that charity is not of consequence but rather that doing solidarity involves intentional action aimed at structural change and making visible the reasons for systemic problems. Charity is aimed at temporary relief and does not aim to change the fundamental circumstances of a situation. There were important discussions in this regard in the school. At the case study level, solidarity was repeatedly illustrated. At the personal narrative level, some participants reflected that perhaps their actions might have been charity instead of solidarity.
• Centring RWAs experiences of solidarity is important as it underscores and makes visible that solidarity is not learnt from textbooks but is shaped and evolves through doing. If you have been part of solidarity action and practiced it, you know solidarity when you see it. The work of scholars is to help deepen our understanding, bring to the fore the riches of various practices of solidarity in different context and, strengthen concepts.
• The meaning making about solidarity is informed by different perspectives, positionality and context. Conceptualisation of solidarity is not neutral, as shown during the school. Solidarity is historically and contextually informed. In many instances in the region – solidarity is resistance – it has been linked to childhood recollections of anti-colonial processes, independence struggles and anti-apartheid movements.

Download the full newsletter below to read the complete stories, case studies, and reflections from this groundbreaking gathering.

Solidarity Newsletter