Recasting solidarity during the COVID-19 pandemic: a case study

ABSTRACT

The practices of social movements during the pandemic show how severe limitations on political and social organization have been turned into opportunities by increasing the focus on social justice and care-based initiatives, building trust and solidarity. This case study explores how the urban militants of the anti-military occupation movement A Foras (Out) maintained visibility during the pandemic. Besides calling attention to the unethical growth of military spending concurrent with the lack of investment in public health during the COVID-19 crisis, the movement engaged in mutualistic action against pandemic-related issues, such as isolation, and social exclusion. We examine ethnographically this hybridized mobilization, which is grounded on the significance of solidarity, community, and the nature of public life. By making social inequality, exclusion and isolation more visible, mutualistic practices act in the social justice arena as a ‘purposive orientation’. This case study offers an example of a grassroots social movement renewing its space of knowledge production by widening its agency and reconfiguring care as an action for political change, adding to the notion of caring democracy by giving rise to a mutualist initiative based on horizontality and potential reciprocity. The article provides an up-to-date understanding of how imaginaries and care practices activated around solidarity, security, and safety are recasting society in southern Europe in the wake of COVID-19. It contributes to the debate around caring democracy in social movements studies by rethinking the significance of caring infrastructures and, ultimately, the meaning of solidarity and trust.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid
• solidarity
• anti-militarism
• Sardinia
• mutualism
• horizontality
• caring democracy

Acknowledgements

This article has benefited from various feedback at different stages of its development. Different versions of the article were presented at the conference Alternative Future & Popular Protests organized by the University of Manchester, at the International Sociological Association Conference in Porto Alegre, and at the Ethnography and Qualitative Research Conference organized by the University of Trento. The authors would like to thank the participants of these events for their discussions. Finally, many thanks to the editors of Social Movement Studies and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful feedback throughout the publication process.

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1. Spesa sospesa revived and expanded the Neapolitan tradition of caffè sospeso, where a coffee shop customer pays for an extra coffee, which is then offered to someone who cannot afford it.

2. We interviewed 30 members, equally represented by gender, between 25 and 40 years old, from January to May 2021. In semi-structured interviews, we addressed the following issues: motivation to join MSK action, previous political experience, connection to A Foras, experience of mutualism, distinction from charities, the meaning of solidarity. All the in-depth interviews were recorded, transcribed verbatim and subsequently analyzed with NVivo. In accordance with the American Sociological Association’s code of ethics, we identify interviewee extracts with the letter I followed by a number (I.1, I.2 and so on).

3. Total global military expenditure rose to $1981 billion last year, an increase of 2.6% in real terms from 2019 (SIPRI, 2021).

Additional information

Funding

Research for this paper was supported by the Research Grant of the Autonomous Region of Sardinia L.R./7/2007 CUPF24I19000360002.

Notes on contributors

Aide Esu

Aide Esu is Associate Professor of Sociology at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the University of Cagliari (Italy). She was the Fulbright Distinguished Chair at the University of Pittsburgh (PA). Her research focuses on the intractable conflict between Israel and Palestine, and on the process of militarization and anti-military movements.

Valeria Dessì

Valeria Dessi earned a PhD in Gender Studies from SOAS, University of London, and is a Research Grantee at the Department of Political and Social Sciences, University of Cagliari.