The Affective Ambiguity of Solidarity: Resonance Within Anti-Deportation Protest in the German Radical Left

Abstract

Solidarity is a key concept in the literature on humanitarianism and social movements. Public discourse, too, promotes solidarity as a consistent feeling of belonging and empowerment. However, despite its popularity in the social sciences, there is little evidence about the phenomenological experiences underlying the concept. This article aims at moving beyond ethical considerations that underlie the boundaries between more conventional and contentious forms of civil engagement in examining the affective and emotional dimensions of solidarity. Building on long-term ethnographic fieldwork within deportation protest in Germany, I draw on cultural approaches to social movements and on the anthropology of affect in order to analyse resonance in four affective encounters. I argue that rather than communicating a political opinion, solidarity represents an attitude with which people explain their engagement in certain forms of affective and emotional exchange which are often just as ambiguous, challenging and contradictory as they are comforting and exciting.

Affective Resonance and Durability in Political Organizing: The case of patients who hack

“…In order to better understand how affective dissonance can produce durable forms of political organizing, we turn to the notion of resonance, which has only recently been discussed in the context of affect studies (Fleig & von Scheve, 2020; Moghaddari, 2020). We draw particularly on the work of Hartmut Rosa (2019) to think through resonance’s role in sustaining political organizing.…”

“…Unavailability also draws our attention to things that may ‘block’ a resonant relationship ( Resonanzblocker ). Moghaddari (2020) for instance recounts a meeting of German anti-deportation protestors that failed to create affective resonance because of external distractions and attendants’ incapacity to resonate, while a similar meeting weeks later sparked plenty of resonance. A refusal or inability to resonate may also constitute a way to avoid affective capture (Endrissat & Islam, 2022) or overinvestment (Berlant, 2015; Bissell, 2022).…”

Resonance beyond regimes: Migrant’s alternative infrastructuring practices in Athens

“…These studies argue that resonance is the reverberation of affect and emotion from one person to the other, without the precondition that the people involved have an intimate relation. Through resonance mutual becoming, such as migrant solidarity (Kemp and Kfir, 2016; Moghaddari, 2021), can emerge. These mutual becomings lack a straightforward causal determination, but there are certainly mobilisations (Moghaddari, 2021) and different capacities to initiate them.…”

“…Through resonance mutual becoming, such as migrant solidarity (Kemp and Kfir, 2016; Moghaddari, 2021), can emerge. These mutual becomings lack a straightforward causal determination, but there are certainly mobilisations (Moghaddari, 2021) and different capacities to initiate them. In other words, while the infrastructuring practices under study may be highly contingent, and may occur suddenly, they are still partly derived from people’s continuous (re-)navigations (Vigh, 2009), improvisations (Simone, 2019), networking (Schapendonk, 2015) and the entanglements of emotions (Wajsberg, 2020).…”

“…This dimension of resonance is further explored by studies affiliated with the affective turn in anthropology (e.g. Mazzarella, 2017;Moghaddari, 2021). These studies argue that resonance is the reverberation of affect and emotion from one person to the other, without the precondition that the people involved have an intimate relation.…”