Solidarity in multiple registers

Abstract

This coauthored article is about building solidarity on Canadian university campuses. We construct a narrative in two registers—one justified left, one justified right—that traces our activism within and beyond the university and how our own solidarity has grown over time and informs our current research collaboration. On the one (left) hand, we describe how we as colleagues, comrades, and friends have come to work together in a shared political project across differences. On the other, we discuss how we have designed and are conducting our research. This polyvocal narration—collaborative, shifting between genres—enacts a radical Black feminist praxis, which informs both our decade-long collaboration and also the principles of the research project we have developed to examine Black student activism and coalition building. We close the article with a reflection on how graduate student researchers are collaborating on the project, their insights, and reflections they have shared with us.

Keywords:

• Black feminisms
• Third World feminisms
• student activism
• solidarity
• narrative methods

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 This article draws on research supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

2 On September 1, 2011, MUNACA, the largest union of support staff workers at McGill University went on strike, mainly over fair compensation and wages for workers. The strike lasted until December 6^th of the same year (Arsem-O’Malley, 2011; Mastracci, 2011).

3 See records of the Independent Student Inquiry (n.d.) into the events of November 10th, 2011.

4 On the Québec student movement, see hampton (2020b).

5 Abby Lippman died in her home in Montreal on December 26^th, 2017 (see Hikaru, 2017).

Aziz Choudry died in South Africa on May 26^th, 2021; we are grieving this loss as we write (see “In memoriam: Abdul Aziz Choudry (1966–2021),” 2021).

6 Members of the Congress working group were: rosalind hampton, Michelle Hartman, Désirée Rochat, Délice Mugabo, Cora-Lee Conway, Lillian Boctor, Lerona Lewis, Kira Page, Shanna Strauss, and Will Prosper.

7 On children in the 2012 Québec student movement, see King (2014).

8 (alphabetically by last name to date): Sarah Abdelshamy, Alexander Beaumont, AJ Bedward, Sophie Bourret-Klein, Wallis Caldoza, Arthi Jeyamohan, Jessica P. Kirk, Heather Porter-Abu Deiab, and Marcus Singleton.

Additional information

Funding

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Notes on contributors

rosalind hampton

rosalind hampton is an Assistant Professor of Black Studies in the Department of Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto. Her areas of teaching, research and graduate supervision include Black radical thought; Black artists and critical-creative practice; Black women’s life writing; social relations in higher education; student activism; solidarity and coalition building; and critical ethnographic and arts-informed methods of inquiry.

Michelle Hartman

Michelle Hartman is a Professor of Arabic Literature and Director of the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University. Her teaching and research focus on the politics of language, literature and translation, and she has worked on issues of solidarity and coalition building, including Black-Arab literary and other creative solidarities.