Abstract: This paper examines the limits of solidarity in the EU by analysing how Roma individuals face exclusion despite formal citizenship. It explores how asylum law and the “safe country of origin” presumption construct boundaries of deservingness. Drawing on legal and sociolegal analysis, it argues that solidarity operates as a selective, conditional practice shaped by discrimination, internal bordering, and unequal access to protection.

Author: Maria-Ecaterina Nistor (Lund University, Sweden)

Abstract: Greece and, more recently, Romania have become important destination countries for Asian migrant workers, including labour migrants from Bangladesh. While both countries have experienced a growing demand for migrant labour, they differ significantly in their migration histories, institutional frameworks, and welfare systems, making the reception and support of migrant workers a complex and context-dependent process. Despite these differences, both settings reveal the importance of local solidarity, expressed through the everyday practices of employers, neighbours, healthcare providers, civil servants, NGO workers, and other members of the host community. Drawing on qualitative interview data collected with adult Bangladeshi labour migrants and local authorities and key informants in both countries, the study explores how migrants encounter, negotiate, and sometimes contest solidaristic practices across these actor domains. Theoretically, the paper draws on Levitt’s hybrid transnational social protection (HTSP) framework, which foregrounds the multi-scalar and multi-actor character of migrants’ welfare arrangements, and situates it within the conference’s analytical lens of social learning boundaries (Mergner, 1999). The central argument is that local solidarity in host countries is not simply present or absent but is structured by moral logics of deservingness, racialized otherness, religious difference, and precarious legal status — logics that migrants learn to navigate, internalise, or resist over time. These boundaries circumscribe who is eligible for solidarity, under what conditions, and at whose initiative. This framing positions migrants as agentic social actors rather than passive recipients of support, foregrounding the ongoing work through which they develop capacities to navigate institutional and social ecosystems that are initially unfamiliar. Empirically, the analysis draws on interviews covering dimensions of workplace relations, institutional encounters (immigration, health, social services), community networks, and everyday social interactions in host-country contexts. Particular attention is paid to instances of unexpected support, systematic exclusion, and the role of intermediary actors — including co-ethnic networks, mosques, and NGOs — in mediating or substituting for state-based solidarity. The findings speak to the conference’s core questions about solidarity boundaries in the domains of ‘work’ and ‘nation’, and to the implications of absent or conditional solidarity for social work practice in receiving societies. The paper contributes to interdisciplinary solidarity research by showing how migrants’ social learning in host contexts both reflects and challenges prevailing normative frameworks of inclusion and exclusion.

Author: Mihaela Haragus (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania)

Abstract: Concepts such as “solidarity” typically appear as nouns—as if they refer to stable entities that can be defined, possessed, and shared. This linguistic form is not neutral. By turning processes into things, it presupposes that something—meanings, understandings, or knowledge—can be transferred across individuals. This assumption rests on an implicit theory of learning. When learning is treated as knowledge or understanding, it is conceived as something individuals acquire and align. Within this epistemological framing, solidarity becomes thinkable as shared meaning or common ground. The paper challenges this assumption by revisiting what learning is. Drawing on a biological framework grounded in Humberto Maturana, learning is reconceptualized as doing: a continuous process of organism-specific change emerging through interaction. Learning is not transmitted but enacted as structural transformation within the living system. From this perspective, interaction does not produce shared understanding. Even under similar conditions, organisms undergo different, history-dependent changes. What appears as shared learning is better understood as coordinated difference: distinct processes of change that become sufficiently aligned to enable compatible action. This shift has direct implications for solidarity. If learning cannot be shared or replicated, solidarity cannot be grounded in shared understanding or consensus. It must instead be understood as the coordination of difference—of systems that act together without becoming the same. This reconceptualization also carries a pedagogical consequence. If solidarity is not a shared cognitive state but a form of coordinated action, it cannot be taught through explanation, discussion, or the transmission of values alone. It must be enacted. Educationally, this requires a shift from speaking about solidarity to organizing conditions in which it is practiced—where learners participate in forms of interaction that demand coordination, mutual adjustment, and response to others. The limits of solidarity, therefore, are not merely social or political but biological. When learning is treated as something to be possessed and shared, solidarity remains an abstraction. When learning is understood as embodied change, solidarity becomes possible only as practice: not the achievement of sameness, but the ongoing accomplishment of coordination without equivalence

Author: Zvi Bekerman (Hebrew University, Israel)

Abstract: Solidarity is often understood as a moral commitment to support others in times of need. Yet empirical evidence suggests that solidarity is never unlimited. Rather, it is socially learned within cultural, political, and institutional frameworks that define who deserves support and where the boundaries of solidarity lie. Contemporary solidarity research, therefore, increasingly focuses not only on practices of solidarity but also on the limits within which solidarity is learned, negotiated, and restricted within social relations and institutional systems. In many societies, moments of crisis tend to reinforce these boundaries. When resources become scarce or risks increase, solidarities often turn inward toward family, kinship networks, and trusted communities, while boundaries toward outsiders become more rigid. This dynamic is reflected in a well-known Arab proverb: “The best among you is the one who cares for his family first,” and another saying often cited in Bedouin culture: “I and my brother against my cousin, and I and my cousin against the stranger”. These cultural expressions capture a hierarchy of solidarity in which moral responsibility is distributed unevenly across circles of belonging.This paper examines how such boundaries of solidarity are negotiated within Bedouin society in Israel. Drawing on qualitative research based on in-depth interviews with twenty Bedouin social workers who assist undocumented Palestinian migrant workers, the study explores how professionals navigate tensions between humanitarian responsibility and the normative boundaries of solidarity shaped by family, tribe, religion, and the state. The analysis proposes a conceptual framework that distinguishes between macro-level and micro-level dimensions of solidarity. At the macro level, Bedouin actors operate within three overlapping regimes of authority: the state, which defines legal and bureaucratic boundaries of assistance; the tribe, which structures obligations within kinship and family networks; and religion, which provides moral justification for helping those in need. At the micro level, individuals engage in processes of moral deliberation shaped by personal faith, professional ethics, and individual values. Findings reveal that solidarity in this context is not expressed through visible collective mobilization but through discreet everyday practices embedded in professional and communal life. Social workers described strategies such as selective visibility, reliance on kinship networks, the use of religious language to legitimize assistance, and the careful management of bureaucratic documentation. Through these practices, assistance can occur while minimizing legal exposure and protecting communal relations. These practices can be understood as forms of quiet resistance, in which humanitarian assistance is sustained within the boundaries imposed by legal systems, communal expectations, and professional responsibilities. Rather than openly challenging institutional authority, actors translate moral obligations into culturally legitimate forms of action that remain socially embedded yet institutionally discreet. By examining how solidarity is learned, negotiated, and limited across the domains of work, family, and nation, this study contributes to empirical solidarity research by demonstrating how minority communities develop moral strategies that allow support to persist even under conditions of legal uncertainty and political tension. The findings highlight how solidarity operates not only as a moral commitment but also as a socially structured practice shaped by hierarchies of belonging and the boundaries of collective responsibility.

Author: Nuzha Allassad Alhuzail (Sapir Academic College, Israel)

Abstract:Boundaries of solidarity are not fixed; they shift depending on how the group, namely the “we” of solidarity, is understood. And, as will be argued below, the “we” of solidarity is permanently contested and are shaped by continuous political struggle of those who are historically excluded and discriminated. The basic liberal nationalist argument is that societies cannot survive without national identities since only through identification with one another as fellow nationals, people would be willing to sacrifice from their self-interest and actively support welfare mechanisms and finance redistributive justice. Defining national identity, however, is a powerful boundary-drawing mechanism between “us” and “others”; and, depending on how we define it, we can generate less or more exclusion. Miller argues that our obligations to people differ and we have special obligations to our fellow nationals; these obligations are different and more immediate than what we owe to other human beings. In Miller’s case, the scope of the national might not coincide with the scope of the state since there might be fellow nationals living other countries. However, the way national identity is specified might even exclude other members of the same political community such as minorities or immigrants. Rawls argues that cooperating with others under a “particular” structure of basic institutions gives rise to obligations among co-citizens who produce together. The difference principle endorses redistribution between the most and least advantaged members of society where these are defined as actively “contributing” to the production of social and material goods in society. Rawls assumes a closed society in Theory; and denies equivalent redistribution across societies in his later works (such as in the The Law of Peoples). And liberal nationalists like Miller wants to argue for stronger national solidarity for the citizen-nationals (not equally so for nationals living in different states). In both cases, the core criteria are highly contestable: for Rawls, it is the question of “what” counts as active contribution (reproductive and domestic labour and artists); for liberal nationalists, it is how national identity is specified (immigrants and minority nations). Consequently, both domains remain sites of permanent political conflict for greater inclusion. The reality is always more complex than theory; for instance, we produce with others across borders (no single item is produced within the borders of any state); and we produce with people within borders who are not our fellow nationals. However, the problem is not only the boundaries of the group is not fixed. The boundaries of solidarity are also shifting and flexible because the groups to which people belong—and with whom they feel solidarity— are many in number and these frequently overlap, intersect, or fall apart. For some, the difficulty could be resolved by prioritizing the membership in the political community, hence citizenship. What I will argue is that we need a pluralistic approach that appreciates the plurality of our belonging and togetherness with others. Any attempt to ignore and reduce such plurality would diminish solidarity.

Author: Tugba Sevinç (Kadir Has University, Turkey)

Abstract: Negotiating Belonging and the Boundaries of Solidarity: Afghan Women’s Experiences in Germany Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, many Afghan women have arrived in Germany, hoping to rebuild their lives. Public debates often describe their reception in terms of solidarity and protection. Yet little is known about how solidarity is experienced in everyday life. This paper explores how Afghan women who migrated to Germany after 2021 experience belonging, recognition and participation. Drawing on an ongoing ethnographic PhD project at the University of Cologne, it uses biographical interviews and participant observation with Afghan women living in Germany to explore this topic. It examines how solidarity is encountered in various areas of daily life, such as education, employment, community involvement, and interactions with public institutions. Many participants describe important forms of support provided by volunteers, social networks, educational institutions, and local initiatives. However, they also encounter barriers that limit their participation and recognition. These include bureaucratic obstacles, difficulties in having qualifications recognised, restricted access to employment, and being reduced to the category of ‘refugee’ rather than being seen as individuals with skills, aspirations, and professional experience. Based on these findings, I argue that solidarity is not a fixed condition, but an ongoing social process. It is experienced differently depending on the context, often being shaped by unequal power relations. While support can create opportunities for participation, experiences of exclusion reveal the limitations of solidarity within contemporary migration Rather than focusing solely on the barriers they face, the paper highlights how Afghan women actively navigate these challenges. Despite structural constraints, participants develop strategies to build new networks, continue their education, regain social status and create a sense of belonging. By examining solidarity from the perspective of the women themselves, the paper makes a valuable contribution to current debates on migration, belonging and social learning. It demonstrates how inclusion and exclusion are negotiated in everyday life, and how experiences of solidarity influence participation and belonging processes in Germany.

Author: Moschda Ebrahimi (Universität zu Köln, Germany)

Abstract: By exploring caregiving as both a practice of “doing family” and a mechanism of transgenerational bonding, this paper shows that children occupy a central place in the perpetuation of family solidarity. It also highlights how family-based solidarity interacts with the support migrants receive in the host society, suggesting that, despite the complexities of migration, these overlapping solidarities can become stronger rather than weaker. The present study examines transnational Bangladeshi families in Romania through the lens of intergenerational solidarity, with particular attention to the role of children in sustaining family ties across borders. The argument is made that, within the context of migration, children are not merely affected by mobility but also become active agents in the production, maintenance, and intensification of solidarity between generations and across national space. The analysis focuses primarily on the first two categories proposed by Levitt et al. (2023): children left behind in the country of origin and non-citizen children born in or growing up in the country of destination. For children who remain in the care of grandparents or extended kin, caregiving practices serve to reinforce relationships between generations and help to preserve family continuity despite physical separation. These children become pivotal relational figures through which connections with family members in the home country are sustained, reinvigorated, and emotionally strengthened. Furthermore, children growing up in Romania also shape new forms of solidarity by anchoring migrants’ lives in the host society and by linking family reproduction to processes of settlement, support, and belonging. The paper posits that solidarity functions as a relational exchange, predicated on reciprocal forms of giving and receiving, care and obligation, emotional support and material commitment. Within this theoretical framework, children function as active agents, serving as both transgenerational and transnational connectors, thereby reinforcing social cohesion and strengthening ties across different generations and national boundaries. Notwithstanding the complications arising from migration which result in a redefinition of caregiving responsibilities, the reconfiguration of care relationships has been demonstrated to engender continuity, to reinforce existing bonds between parents and adult children, and to extend concern for others beyond the confines of physical distance. The paper suggests that solidarity functions as a relational exchange, based on reciprocal forms of giving and receiving, care and obligation, emotional support and so forth. By exploring caregiving as both a practice of “doing family” and a mechanism of transgenerational bonding, this paper demonstrates that children occupy a central place in the perpetuation of family solidarity. The study also demonstrates how family-based solidarity interacts with the support migrants receive in the host society, suggesting that, despite the complexities of migration, these overlapping solidarities can become stronger rather than weaker.

Author: Iulia Elena Hossu, Áron Telegdi-Csetri & Ovidiu Oltean (Romanian Institute for Research on National Minorities, Romania)

Abstract: In Croatia, Roma children have formal access to compulsory education, yet they enter school from markedly unequal social and educational conditions. This paper examines what the gap between formal inclusion and substantive support reveals about the limits of solidarity. When schools are expected to compensate for inequalities linked to poverty, low parental educational attainment, unemployment, overcrowded housing, and language-related barriers, where is responsibility for children’s learning actually placed? The study draws on 150 third- and fourth-grade children from two state primary schools. Seventy-five Roma children were matched with 75 non-Roma children on school, age, gender, and non-verbal intelligence. We assessed verbal working memory, inhibition, cognitive flexibility, and sustained attention, alongside parental education, income, employment, living conditions, and parenting styles. Roma children had lower verbal working-memory scores and made more perseverative errors on a card-sorting task, indicating lower cognitive flexibility. They did not differ from non-Roma peers in inhibition or sustained attention. Crucially, when parental education, household income, maternal employment, and living conditions were considered, group differences in verbal working memory and cognitive flexibility were no longer statistically significant. In parallel mediation analyses, parental education—but not income, maternal employment, or living conditions—showed a statistically significant indirect association with both outcomes. Associations between parenting and cognitive flexibility also differed by group, suggesting that parenting categories cannot be interpreted independently of social and cultural context. These findings do not support a deficit account of Roma children. Rather, they show how differences easily read as individual or ethnic characteristics can reflect unequal access to the resources through which children learn: parents’ educational experiences, ability to support school demands, material security, and recognition within educational institutions. The paper therefore treats executive-function inequalities not as a reason for individual remediation, but as evidence of unequal conditions under which the right to education is exercised. The contribution locates these processes at the intersection of family and nation. It asks how far a welfare state can claim educational solidarity when universal school enrolment is not accompanied by adequate support for families whose educational opportunities have been constrained. The paper discusses interventions that strengthen family–school relationships and reduce structural barriers without making Roma families responsible for remedying inequalities they did not create.

Author: Silvija Rucevic, Sandra Brezetic & Tijana Borovac, Josip Juraj Strossmayer (University in Osijek, Croatia)

Abstract: Solidarity remains an important foundation for social cohesion in increasingly fragmented societies. Within the South African context, challenges such as gender-based violence, harmful gender norms, youth violence, and social exclusion highlight the need for interventions that promote positive relationships, mutual support, and collective responsibility among young people. This presentation explores how solidarity is learned, developed, and negotiated among boys participating in a school-based Boy Child Development Programme. The programme provides a supportive space in which boys engage with topics relating to positive masculinity, emotional well-being, leadership, responsibility, healthy relationships, and character education. Drawing on Social Learning Theory and Afrocentrism, the programme recognises that attitudes, values, and behaviours are shaped through interaction with peers, role models and the broader society. Male teachers within the school system serve as positive mentors and role models. The school is a microcosm of society, creating opportunities for boys to learn through peer interactions, group discussions, mentorship from male teachers, guidance, and shared experiences. The programme is further informed by the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which emphasises interconnectedness, mutual care, respect, dignity, and shared responsibility. Ubuntu offers a lens for understanding how solidarity is cultivated and how young people develop a sense of belonging and responsibility towards others. The programme seeks to strengthen values that support positive relationships within families, schools, and communities. This presentation reports on an emerging qualitative exploration of social learning, ubuntu, and solidarity among Senior Phase male learners participating in the programme. Data will be drawn from participants’ reflections, group discussions, facilitated observations, and feedback collected during the implementation phase. Attention will be given to how peer interactions and mentorship contribute to boys’ understandings of support, belonging, empathy, compassion, accountability, and responsibility. In addition to examining the development of solidarity, the presentation will explore its boundaries within boys’ social interactions. These may include dominant expectations of masculinity, peer pressure, exclusion, stigma surrounding emotional expression, and perceptions of who is deserving of support. Such boundaries provide insight into how solidaristic values are encouraged, constrained, or contested within youth social environments. The presentation argues that school-based social work and youth development programmes can serve as important spaces for cultivating positive masculinities and strengthening solidarity among young people. The findings may contribute to mainstreaming solidarity in school-based interventions while highlighting the relevance of Ubuntu-informed social work practice in promoting social cohesion and social justice in South Africa and beyond.

Author: Sesihle Mathebula (South African College of Applied Psychology SACAP, South Africa)

Abstract: Solidarity does not simply exist in social contexts; rather, it is learnt, tested and developed; it can fail and trigger conflicts, or it can help to create and strengthen social relationships. This means that solidarity is always the product of both individual and social learning. For without the embedding of solidarity-based action within social contexts, learning cannot take place; at the same time, individual learning about solidarity can only occur if existing social limits to learning can be identified, shifted and expanded. The limits to learning embedded within social contexts thus play a central role in individual learning processes. This is because, in many cases, existing limits to learning cannot simply be addressed and overcome on an individual basis; rather, this requires the development of a social and solidarity-based practice that relies on mutual support. This connection is of central importance to social work. Whilst theoretical concepts of social work are often dominated by subject centred and reflexive approaches (including those of Winkler, Dewe and Otto), which emphasise the autonomy and agency of the individual – as is also the case, for example, in connection with the call for social work to be normatively oriented towards human rights – there is a lack in social work of theoretically and conceptually sound approaches that take sufficient account, in a nuanced manner, of the significance of collective, social contexts – particularly in modern societies. Against this background, the planned presentation will examine the significance of the concept of the approach of limits to learning for social work. The thesis put forward is that social work is, at its core, a profession which, within its respective fields of action, supports individuals and social groups – such as families or communities – to overcome existing limits to learning – and thus experienced limitations on individual and social agency by initiating individual and societal learning processes. Support from social work is primarily provided to people who are already affected by marginalisation, or those at risk of marginalisation. This is achieved primarily through the development and establishment of diverse social practices of solidarity. These social practices are not yet very much in the focus of social work research. Therefore, there is a need to examine individual and social limits to learning as well as of actions and processes arising from acts of solidarity in contexts of social work, with a view to their role in overcoming individual and existing social learning barriers. Furthermore, this will contribute to generate new impetus for professional practice, as well as it will contribute to theoretical and empirical advancement of the social work discipline.

Author: Thomas Geisen (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Switzerland)

Abstract: In contemporary digital societies, human suffering is increasingly translated into data. Experiences of displacement, poverty, illness, trauma, loneliness, and social vulnerability are no longer understood solely through human relationships, ethical responsibility, or collective solidarity, but are increasingly processed through predictive systems, algorithmic assessments, biometric infrastructures, and data-driven governance mechanisms. From humanitarian aid and migration management to welfare administration and digital health systems, institutions increasingly rely on artificial intelligence and data analytics to identify, classify, and prioritize vulnerable populations. While these technologies are often presented as objective and efficient tools for improving social intervention, this paper argues that the datafication of human pain fundamentally transforms the moral and political meaning of suffering itself. The paper argues that datafication does not simply measure pain; it reshapes the conditions under which suffering becomes visible, legitimate, and socially recognized. Within this emerging digital order, pain acquires institutional significance only when it can be quantified, categorized, and translated into administratively recognizable forms. Human vulnerability is therefore reconstructed through technological processes that privilege measurable forms of suffering while marginalizing experiences resistant to data extraction. Consequently, the central question is no longer only who suffers, but whose suffering can be transformed into recognizable digital categories. Drawing on critical theory, digital governance scholarship, human rights discourse, and debates on algorithmic power, the paper argues that the datafication of pain risks narrowing solidarity into a conditional and technocratic practice governed by visibility, prediction, and statistical relevance. Algorithmic systems increasingly influence whose vulnerability receives institutional attention, which communities are categorized as “high risk,” and what forms of suffering are considered worthy of intervention. Such systems are embedded within broader structures of inequality, economic rationality, border governance, and bureaucratic control that shape the distribution of care and protection. The paper further contends that growing dependence on digital systems transforms the relationship between empathy and governance. When institutions encounter suffering primarily through dashboards, predictive scores, and automated classifications, the human encounter with pain becomes mediated by technological abstraction. In this process, solidarity risks shifting from a moral relation grounded in shared humanity toward a managerial logic centered on data optimization and institutional efficiency. The analysis is informed by the author’s interdisciplinary experience as a legal technology specialist and law professor who has researched and taught across institutions in both the Global South and the Global North for more than a decade. This comparative engagement highlights how data-driven governance models are increasingly globalized without sufficient attention to structural vulnerability, cultural complexity, or human dignity. Ultimately, the paper argues that preserving solidarity in digital societies requires resisting the reduction of human suffering to measurable information alone. The future of ethical governance depends not only on technological innovation, but also on protecting forms of social recognition that continue to understand pain as a profoundly human reality beyond algorithmic classification.

Author: Murtaza Mohiqi (University of Agder, Norway)

Abstract: Residential care homes are often imagined as communities of shared vulnerability. Whether they also become communities of solidarity, however, remains an open empirical and theoretical question. While solidarity has predominantly been explored through the lens of intergenerational relations, family obligations, and welfare arrangements, considerably less attention has been paid to solidarity among older adults themselves. Even less is known about the role institutions play in shaping solidaristic orientations and practices. Rather than assuming that shared ageing and co-vulnerability naturally generate solidarity, this paper approaches solidarity as a socially learned, morally negotiated, and institutionally embedded process. The paper asks how solidaristic orientations emerge, how they are sustained, and where their boundaries become visible within residential care. Far from conceptualising solidarity solely as supportive behaviour, the study understands it as a multidimensional process encompassing moral values, collective identification, everyday practices, and shared repertoires through which mutual responsibility is interpreted, justified, enacted, or withheld. It further asks whether residential care homes cultivate distinctive institutional cultures of solidarity, shaped by organisational routines, spatial arrangements, professional practices, and everyday interactions. The paper presents an ongoing qualitative study conducted in three residential care homes in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Drawing primarily on semi-structured interviews with residents, complemented by interviews with social workers aimed at understanding organisational cultures and institutional practices, the study explores how solidaristic repertoires are coproduced through the interaction between residents’ biographies and institutional environments. Particular attention is paid to the role of gender, educational background, socio-economic trajectories, health status, previous life experiences, and internalised ageism in shaping different understandings and enactments of solidarity. Comparing three residential care homes also allows the study to examine whether different institutional contexts foster different cultures and repertoires of solidarity. Conceptually, the paper argues that shared ageing, togetherness, and solidarity should not be treated as interchangeable notions. While shared ageing creates opportunities for identification and co-presence, solidaristic commitments emerge through complex processes of social learning situated at the intersection of individual biographies, institutional cultures, and everyday moral negotiations. By examining how solidarity is socially produced – and where its limits become visible and with what social and personal effects – the paper contributes to debates on the boundaries of solidarity in later life and proposes a framework for understanding residential care homes not merely as sites of care, but as social environments in which solidarity is continuously learned, negotiated, differentiated, and contested.

Author: Adriana Teodorescu (Babeș-Bolyai University, Romania)

Abstract: The Refugee Parliament in Switzerland offers a practical example of how solidarity can move beyond symbolic support and become a form of political participation. Rather than speaking about refugees, the initiative creates spaces in which people with lived experience of forced displacement formulate their own demands, engage directly with political institutions, and participate in public debate. This contribution reflects on the Refugee Parliament as a practice of learning solidarity. Through parliamentary sessions, thematic commissions, hearings and dialogue with policymakers, refugees, civil society actors and political representatives encounter different perspectives, institutional constraints and unequal distributions of power. Solidarity therefore emerges not as a fixed moral position, but as a negotiated and sometimes contested learning process. At the same time, the experience reveals clear boundaries. Participation does not automatically translate into political influence, and institutional openness can coexist with structural inequalities in access to rights, resources and decision-making. Using practical experiences from the Swiss Refugee Parliament, the contribution asks how participatory structures can challenge the traditional distinction between those who “show solidarity” and those who are expected merely to receive it.

Author: Peter Mozolevskyi (University of Applied Sciences and Arts Northwestern Switzerland, Switzerland)

Abstract: Solidarity is often mobilised in times of political and societal crises, manifesting at institutional, collective, and interpersonal levels. Yet the strong solidaristic practices that emerge in the early stages of crises frequently diminish over time, vary across places, or become politically constrained. This paper examines how this process is experienced by displaced Ukrainians who have settled in Vienna and Bratislava. The paper is the first to apply the theoretical concept of absent solidarity, which understands absence not merely as a lack of solidarity but as a distinct relational practice. Absent solidarity emerges from disrupted configurations of power, responsibility, and need, and manifests itself in different empirical forms, ranging from passive inaction (nonsolidarity) and the active withdrawal of support (unsolidarity) to hostile and violent practices (anti-solidarity). The analysis draws on qualitative interviews with displaced Ukrainians as well as members of the receiving societies in Vienna and Bratislava who position themselves at different points along a continuum from solidaristic to unsolidaristic attitudes towards displaced people. It examines everyday experiences across different areas of life, including housing, employment, language acquisition, and care, where solidarity, its limits, or its absence become visible. The paper engages with contemporary debates in solidarity research while remaining in dialogue with critical refugee and migration studies, which conceptualise solidarity as a relational and contested practice. Against this background, it demonstrates how limits of solidarity can be analysed under conditions of prolonged political and societal crises.

Author: Natalia Varabyeu Kancelova (University of Vienna, Austria)