In the summer of 2015, an extraordinary number of German residents felt an urge to provide help to refugees. Doing good, however, is not as simple and straightforward as it might appear. Practices of solidarity are intertwined with questions of power. They are situated, relative and contested, unfolding in an ambivalent space between humanitarianism and political activism. This ethnographic account of the German "welcome culture" provides insights into the contested practices, imaginaries, interests and politics of refugee solidarity. Drawing on works from critical migration studies to social anthropology, Larissa Fleischmann develops an empirically grounded understanding of solidarity in migration societies.

In the summer of 2015, an extraordinary number of German residents felt an urge to provide help to refugees. Doing good, however, is not as simple and straightforward as it might appear. Practices of solidarity are intertwined with questions of power. They are situated, relative and contested, unfolding in an ambivalent space between humanitarianism and political activism. This ethnographic account of the German »welcome culture« provides insights into the contested practices, imaginaries, interests and politics of refugee solidarity. Drawing on works from critical migration studies to social anthropology, Larissa Fleischmann develops an empirically grounded understanding of solidarity in migration societies.

In Spaces of Conflict, Sounds of Solidarity, Gaye Theresa Johnson examines interracial anti-racist alliances, divisions among aggrieved minority communities, and the cultural expressions and spatial politics that emerge from the mutual struggles of Blacks and Chicanos in Los Angeles from the 1940s to the present. Johnson argues that struggles waged in response to institutional and social repression have created both moments and movements in which Blacks and Chicanos have unmasked power imbalances, sought recognition, and forged solidarities by embracing the strategies, cultures, and politics of each others' experiences. At the center of this study is the theory of spatial entitlement: the spatial strategies and vernaculars utilized by working class youth to resist the demarcations of race and class that emerged in the postwar era. In this important new book, Johnson reveals how racial alliances and antagonisms between Blacks and Chicanos in L.A. had spatial as well as racial dimensions.

In the historiography of human rights, the 1980s feature as little more than an afterthought to the human rights breakthrough of the previous decade. Through an examination of one of the major actors of recent human rights history – Poland's Solidarity movement – Robert Brier challenges this view. Suppressed in 1981, Poland's Solidarity movement was supported by a surprisingly diverse array of international groups: US Cold Warriors, French left-wing intellectuals, trade unionists, Amnesty International, even Chilean opponents of the Pinochet regime. By unpacking the politics and transnational discourses of these groups, Brier demonstrates how precarious the position of human rights in international politics remained well into the 1980s. More importantly, he shows that human rights were a profoundly political and highly contested language, which actors in East and West adopted to redefine their social and political identities in times of momentous cultural and intellectual change.

Cross-border solidarity has captured the interest and imagination of scholars, activists and a range of political actors in such contested areas as the US-Mexico border and Guantanamo Bay. Chandra Russo examines how justice-seeking solidarity drives activist communities contesting US torture, militarism and immigration policies. Through compelling and fresh ethnographic accounts, Russo follows these activists as they engage in unusual and high risk forms of activism (fasting, pilgrimage, civil disobedience). She explores their ideas of solidarity and witnessing, which are central to how the activists explain their activities. This book adds to our understanding of solidarity activism under new global arrangements, and illuminates the features of movement activity that deepen activists' commitment by helping their lives feel more humane, just and meaningful. Based on participant observation, interviews, surveys and hundreds of courtroom statements, Russo develops a new theorization of solidarity that will take a central place in social movement studies.

Oversimplification of the concept of social cohesion as a singularly identifiable marker of social growth has lead to obscured understanding of the nuances necessary for achievement of the term’s true potential. This book thus provides a critique of a popular concept and an example of engaged philosophical criticism of social research and policy.

This open access book provides a concise introduction to a critical development in memory studies. A global memory formation has emerged since the 1990s, in which memories of traumatic histories in different parts of the world, often articulated in the terms established by Holocaust memory, have become entangled, reconciled, contested, conflicted and negotiated across borders. As historical actors and events across time and space become connected in new ways, new grounds for contest and competition arise; claims to the past that appeared de-territorialized in the global memory formation become re-territorialized – deployed in the service of nationalist projects. This poses challenges to scholarship but also to practice: How can we ensure that shared or comparable memories of past injustice continue to be grounds for solidarity between different memory communities? In chapters focusing on Europe, East Asia and Africa, five scholars respond to these challenges from a range of disciplinary perspectives in the humanities.