Academic literature on the topic 'Sisterly solidarity'

This essay explores contemporary cultural practices of feminist politics emerging within the women's college campus at the University of Delhi. Through the study of two examples of a public demonstration and campaign against high prices of certain essential provisions and a formal performance outside the campus, the essay tries to map cultural practices, transgressions and political potentials, but also the limits and shortcomings. The essay intends to read these examples through a gender critique and alternate registers of sisterhood, collective imagination and solidarity.

In the article, from a feminist perspective, we look at two visions of “Solidarity,” that was co-created by women, shown in documentary films – Solidarity According to Women, 2014, dir. Marta Dzido, Piotr Śliwowski and Women of Freedom, 2019, dir. Wiesław Paluch, Mirosław Basaj. For this purpose, we refer, i.a., to the concept of situated knowledge (Donna Haraway, 2009), its reinterpretation in the context of the category of care (María Puig de la Bellacasa, 2017) or to the category of affective solidarity (Clare Hemmings, 2012). We describe the narrative strategy of Women of Freedom as a story about heroism without heroines, while the one we read in Solidarity According to Women we call heroising of heroines. During the analyzes, we explore different visions of female roles and identities, we also address the topic of sisterhood, both between women involved in the movement and in the relationship between the researcher and the subject of the research. Finally, becoming aware of our own affective dissonance, we consider how critical and sisterly interpretative practices are possible.

Since its production William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet has been considered too modern for its time because of its portrayal of ill-fated characters whose tragedy is not triggered by any personal flaw of their own, but by family feuds and social scapegoating. In contemporary times, the playwrights still focus on similar stories of unattainable love and tragic romantic figures, who fall prey to the familial and social pressures. In her Wedding Band (1973), Alice Childress presents her black and white Romeo and Juliet who are modern victims of the omnipresent racism in their society. The play confirms that racism is not only practised by whites against blacks but also displayed by blacks against whites. In Wedding Band, Childress presents images of angry women united by their suffering and need of sisterly solidarity. Their anger is a positive rather than negative factor as it frees the heroine from the ties that make her an outcast in her own community. This paper discusses the destiny of two lovers who face refusal from their family and society and the subsequent anger of the female characters whether in favour or against this romantic relation.

Abstract This article focuses on Italian Holocaust testimonies written by three female survivor-writers—Edith Bruck, Liana Millu, and Giuliana Tedeschi. It considers how these authors use diverse literary forms to represent the experiences of mothers and daughters in the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Key passages in Tedeschi's survivor memoir C’è un punto della terra show the extent to which her experience was shaped by her separation from her children, and by feelings of maternal longing. Millu's autobiographical story collection Il fumo di Birkenau deftly employs the imaginative techniques of fiction to represent maternal nurturing and sacrifice. In these stories, the brutal lack of solidarity inside the camp is balanced by depictions of sisterly and motherly care among the female prisoners. Hungarian-born Bruck feels unable to recount her Holocaust memories in her mother tongue, even though much of what she has written is either for or to her mother. One such work is Lettera alla madre, a deeply affecting autobiographical novel that takes the form of an undeliverable letter. The text focuses on the unresolved relationship between the survivor-daughter and her mother, who was gassed on the day they arrived at Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Linda Lê’s is one of the most resonant voices of the Vietnamese diaspora in Francophone writing, and her works are frequently read through the lens of exile and encounter with the other. While not engaging with explicit representations of the diasporic experience, Lê’s fictional and non-fictional texts are profoundly marked by the dislocation and alienation associated with the experience. This article considers the ways in which Linda Lê’s fictional writing surpasses the author’s own particular experience of the Vietnamese diaspora to offer a literary universe in which the disruptions of diaspora are expressed through the depiction of resistant modes of being and belonging. Focusing on two recent novels, Les aubes (2000) and In memoriam (2007), this article analyses Lê’s resistant construction of femininity, arguing that it is prompted and even enabled by the necessary transitions and transpositions of the diasporic experience. Through an examination of the sisterly solidarity, gender alterity and (in)corporeality that are foregrounded in these novels, the analysis explores Lê’s intratextual disruption of inherited models of femininity and modes of participation in domestic and sexual relationships, and draws a link with Lê’s extratextual literary universe to reveal the feminist ethics that underpins her resistance to gendered hierarchies. La voix de Linda Lê est l’une des plus significatives de la diaspora vietnamienne dans la littérature francophone et ses œuvres sont fréquemment lues dans l’optique de l’exil et de la rencontre avec l’autre. En contournant la représentation explicite de l’expérience diasporique, ses textes autant fictionnels que non-fictionnels sont néanmoins profondément marqués par les ruptures et l’aliénation de cette expérience. Cet article examine la manière dont l’écriture fictionnelle de Linda Lê dépasse la propre expérience que l’auteure a fait de la diaspora vietnamienne, pour construire un univers littéraire dans lequel les heurts de l’expérience se traduisent par des modes d’être et d’appartenir contestataires. Tout en se concentrant sur la construction de la féminité résistante dans deux romans récents, Les aubes (2000) et In memoriam (2007), l’article avance l’idée que se sont les transitions et transpositions imposées par l’expérience diasporique qui l’ont rendue non seulement possible mais nécessaire. À travers l’étude de la solidarité sororale, l’altérité sexuelle et l’(in)corporéité au sein de ces deux romans, cet analyse explore d’une part la contestation des modèles hérités de la féminité, et de l’autre part, le refus de participer à des relations domestiques et sexuelles conventionnelles. En conclusion, il s’attache à démontrer comment ce lien entre les féminités contestataires de cette auteure singulière et son univers littéraire intertextuel participe d’une éthique féministe qui soustend la résistance aux hiérachies genrées.

PurposeThis paper explores the experiences of women in Saudi Arabia who have been managed by other women, and examines how junior women perceive senior women's role in advancing their career.Design/methodology/approachThe paper is based on qualitative data gathered using in-depth semi-structured interviews undertaken with 30 women working in Saudi public organisations.FindingsThis study's findings shows that the hierarchical relationships between women and their woman manager are complex due to a multifaceted web of contextual factors including sociocultural values, family values, religious beliefs and organisational cultures and structures. These factors shape the quality of relationships between senior women and their women subordinates. Also, this study reveals that there is solidarity and ‘sisterly’ relationship between women in the workplace that plays a role in facilitating women's career development and advancement. In addition, this study shows that despite senior women's having supported other women's career advancement, this support tended to be conditional and limited. This can have an influence on women-to-women work relationships, where such relationships can be described as being disconnected and fragile. Furthermore, the study depict that there is evidence of the existence of ‘Queen Bee’-like senior women who distance themselves from other women and block their career advancement. The Queen Bee phenomena can actually become a form of hierarchy that mimics the patriarchal structure and excludes women from serving at top management levels.Originality/valueThis paper provides an in-depth understanding of the hierarchical relationships between women in the workplace and how these relationships have an influence on women's career advancement. Therefore, the paper makes a valuable contribution to the scarce knowledge that currently exists within the field of management research in relation to women's career development – and the advancement of such research within the Arab Middle Eastern context. Also, the findings of this study could potentially inform practitioners and HR department personnel within organisations about the connections between women's hierarchical workplace relationships and women's career development and advancement.

La migration chinoise de travail en France depuis la fin des années 1990 est marquée par un processus de féminisation et de prolétarisation. Cette thèse étudie ce phénomène migratoire dans la manucure, et retrace l’expansion d’une niche économique, ethnique et genrée dans les années 2010 en région parisienne. De deux à trois personnes sur le marché du soin des ongles, ces femmes y sont passées à environ 1 500 travailleuses 15 ans plus tard. Leur présence s’est étendue à d’autres quartiers, régions, voire pays européens.Pourquoi ces femmes, se sont-elles tournées massivement vers cette activité professionnelle aux conditions de travail précaires ? Pourquoi ces travailleuses souvent sans-papiers se sont-elles coupées de la sécurité des réseaux traditionnels des enclaves chinoises parisiennes, qui leur permettent de vivre et de travailler, même sans parler français ?Notre enquête statistique et ethnographique a été menée entre 2014 et 2020 auprès de centaines de manucures seules et primo-arrivantes. Outre l’examen du contexte macro-structurel expliquant la féminisation de l’émigration chinoise, cette thèse privilégie une approche par études de cas. L’imaginaire sur la mobilité de travail transnationale ainsi que sur la France a été questionné pour reconstituer les projets migratoires de 89 manucures en France. L’enquête a établi trois profils-types, les « anciennes ouvrières délaissées », les « travailleuses précaires mobiles », et les « migrantes professionnelles », associés à trois vagues de migration.La thèse montre le caractère ambivalent de « l’enclave ethnique », qui joue le rôle de « sas », mais dans laquelle ces femmes se retrouvent soumises à un endettement moral et financier, ainsi qu’à un contrôle social. Trouvant leurs premiers emplois et logements grâce aux réseaux régionaux chinois en France (laoxiang 老乡), ces femmes parviennent grâce à la manucure à s’en extraire, mais restent sans-papiers. Elles ont construit un réseau nouveau de femmes issues de toute la Chine qui travaillent pour des patrons non-chinois. Elles se forment entre elles, de façon horizontale, avec le shituzhi, un compagnonnage entre « sœurs » (jiemei 姐妹) qui assure une place dans un salon de manucure et une maîtrise des dernières techniques à la mode. Le logement de ces femmes constitue un déclassement mais assure une liberté vis-à-vis des règles sociales (guanxi 关系), et leur vie frugale mais bien organisée leur permet, hors des jugements traditionnels, de préparer leur retour en Chine. Néanmoins, ces femmes en situation irrégulière y subissent une exploitation comme main-d’œuvre bon marché. En 2014, une grève médiatisée soutenue par des syndicats français suivie d’un procès et d’une propagation des revendications à plusieurs boutiques de manucure nous permet de décrire l’agentivité de ces travailleuses précaires. Dans un salon à Paris un retard de paiement et une rumeur de fermeture a permis le rapprochement des manucures avec des coiffeuses sans-papiers originaires d’Afrique et une lutte collective devenue un modèle pour des grèves similaires dans d’autres salons. Son issue, victorieuse, a permis de condamner les gérants pour traite d’êtres humains en 2018, des régularisations, des améliorations des conditions de travail et le versement des salaires. Toutefois, certaines, déjà uberisées et moins expérimentées dans la lutte syndicale, a peu gagné. La modernisation de la niche ethnique, de l’activité et de son image sur internet, et l’extension des services, autorisent l’espoir d’une normalisation des conditions de travail, d’une reconnaissance des compétences, et la poursuite de l’activité au retour en Chine, où le travail du care est en plein essor. Cette thèse explique les mobilités spatiales et sociales des travailleuses et met en évidence le coût humain de l’illégalité et les ressources que construisent les femmes migrantes précarisées
Chinese labor migration to France since the late 1990s has been marked by a process of feminization, but also of proletarianization. This thesis studies this migratory phenomenon through the cases of women working in the manicure sector in Paris and in the Paris region, and traces the emergence and expansion of an ethnic and gendered economic niche in the 2010s. From two to three people in the nail care market at the beginning of 2000, these women have grown to around 1,500 workers in the Paris region fifteen years later. Their presence, initially concentrated in a single Parisian district, has spread widely to other French regions, and even to other European countries. How did this expansion come about? Why do these women -working in extremely precarious conditions- still join this professional activity on a massive scale? Why do these mostly undocumented workers cut themselves off from the relative security of the traditional networks of Parisian Chinese enclaves, which enable the non-French-speaking migrants to live and work, even if they are undocumented? The present research is based on a statistical and ethnographic survey conducted between 2014 and 2020 among Chinese women recently arrived alone in France. In addition to examining the macro-structural context -the influence of social-economic and political changes that explain the feminization of Chinese emigration- this thesis favors a case-study approach and proposes an analysis of the configurations of these women’s trajectories. The formulation of questions on the imagination about transnational labor mobility and about France enabled us to reconstruct the formation of the migratory project of 89 manicurists working in France. The survey also enabled us to draw up three profiles: “abandoned former state workers”, “mobile precarious workers” and “professional migrants”. This typology provides a parallel account of the three waves of migration that occurred in quick succession in the 2000s, and which accompanied the emergence of the professional manicure niche. The thesis shows the ambivalent character of the “ethnic enclave”, which acts as a “sas”, but in which these women find themselves subjected to moral and financial indebtedness, inducing a rather restrictive social control. Initially finding employment and housing through the traditional networks of Chinese emigration, structured by the region of origin (laoxiang 老乡), these women manage to extricate themselves from these relationships through manicuring, while fighting on their own against the administrative difficulties posed by their undocumented status. Over time, they have built up a new network of women from different parts of China, working for non-Chinese employers. They also train each other, using a horizontal training and mutual aid system known as shituzhi, a system of companionship between “sisters” (jiemei 姐妹) that ensures a place in a nail salon and a high level of mastery of nail techniques, which is supposed to respond to fashion, which is constantly changing. The nail technicians' housing, often downgraded compared to their standard of living before emigration, nevertheless ensures a form of freedom outside of the social rules in China (guanxi 关系), and their frugal but well-organized life enables them, outside the judgments of Chinese society, to prepare for a better situation on their return to China. Nevertheless, these undocumented immigrant women, who work in an irregular administrative situation, are exposed to exploitation as cheap workers in the manicure niche. The story of a high-profile strike led by these women and supported by French unions, which later ended in a court case with a wide spread of demands for professional and migrants rights, enables us to highlight the agentivity and inventiveness of these precarious workers

This thesis examines how the relationships between women, inside and outside the international women's organization for professionally working women – Soroptimist International – is informed by proximity and distance, which orientates the organization in the direction of a multiculturalism informed by imperial feminism. Focus lies on the organizations use of terms such as “sister” and “professional woman”, and the imagined benefits and responsibilities of being a soroptimist. The thesis is centered on interviews with members from Soroptimist International Sweden, which is seen as a microlevel of the international organization. By interviewing members and comparing the statements with some of the official documents produced by the organization, I also examine the relation between policy and practice. Drawing on the affect theories of Sara Ahmed regarding emotions and bodily orientation; postcolonial perspectives on transnational feminism, sisterhood and solidarity; and anthropological perspectives on transnational women's network, I argue that the orientation of Soroptimist International is informed by white middle-class heterosexual women. When working for women's rights as human rights it is furthermore based on a UN discourse, which also orientate the organization in a universally western way. Furthermore, I also show how the network of Soroptimist International is end oriented, which means that its information and knowledge exchange is centered around its members and the expansion of the network, instead of advocacy making on behalf of women that are non-members. This leads to the conclusion that if Soroptimist International wishes to reorient away from its feminist imperialist and multiculturalist elements, it needs to engage with a praxis-oriented solidarity concept. This means obtaining a multifaceted communication between its local and global levels, as well as seizing the many different partial perspectives existing inside as well as outside the organization.

À l’origine, la nouvelle concernant l’occupation américaine d’Haïti en 1915 a suscité peu d’indignation aux États-Unis. En effet, on reproche à la république son instabilité politique et on juge aussi qu’une intervention américaine concourrait à l’édifice de l’autorité de la loi. À partir de 1915 et surtout en 1920, l’Association nationale pour l’avancement des gens de couleur (NAACP), fondée en 1909, critique cette ingérence et milite pour y voir un terme. W.E. B. Du Bois et James Weldon Johnson, deux figures publiques noires importantes travaillant au sein de l’organisation, dénoncent avec conviction l’occupation d’Haïti. Les historiens ont jusqu’ici jugé que la NAACP fut inspirée par des considérations de solidarité raciale en adhérant à la cause de la souveraineté haïtienne. Si la thèse présente ne réfute pas cette possibilité, elle cherche tout de même à démontrer que le cadre conceptuel de la solidarité raciale ne saurait illustrer toute la complexité de la campagne haïtienne érigée par la NAACP. Par conséquent, une attention dirigée davantage sur le contexte social et politique américain entre 1915 et 1922 révèle que pour la NAACP, la dénonciation de l’occupation américaine d’Haïti représentait d’une part une opportunité de discuter des problèmes sociaux touchant les Afro-Américains, et d’autre part, une occasion de renforcer sa position aux États-Unis.
Initially, the news of the U.S. occupation of Haiti in 1915 generated little concern in the United States. Indeed, Haiti’s political instability made it such that a U.S. intervention seemed unavoidable. As of 1915 and especially 1920, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), founded in 1909, denounced the U.S. interference in the Caribbean island. W.E.B. Du Bois and James Weldon Johnson, two of the association’s most influential black members, were deeply invested in condemning the U.S. occupation of Haiti. Historiographical tendencies have long located the NAACP’s engagement with Haiti in a conversation about black solidarity, but have failed to adequately consider the local politics that may have inspired the NAACP’s work. While this thesis does not refute the importance of black solidarity, it does recognise the limits of this conceptual approach in trying to explain the complexity of the NAACP’s work on the behalf of Haiti’s sovereignty. Placing more attention on the social and political context in the United States between 1915 and 1922 reveals that the NAACP utilised the occupation of Haiti as a means of attracting broader attention to domestic issues affecting black Americans, but also as a means of reinforcing the organisation’s own profile in the United States.

This chapter is an attempt to uncover the absent legacy of the deified child goddesses—the virginal maidens as mothers, daughters, sisters designated as kanyās, bālās, and kumārīs—and their empowered myths that may serve as a rich cultural resource to formulate an indigenous paradigm to raise the lost and forgotten dignity of the girl child. It provides a selective reading on pro-gender views on the girl child from brahminical and Śākta Tantric sources. The chapter attempts to provide a new theoretical orientation for the neglected area of study in order to reconnect the archaic, under-researched past with modern programs to empower the girl child. It explores the ways in which positive cultural resources of myths and legends on child goddesses can be reclaimed to create space for a dialogue with contemporary development programs in order to promote the autonomy of, and community solidarity with, the girl child in India.

Findings from a participatory action research project conducted by the Welfare Warriors Research Collaborative (WWRC) are used to explore the questions of whether and what kind of psychology can support racially and ethnically diverse, low-income lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and gender nonconforming (LGBTGNC) liberation. Such issues cannot be understood through lenses of gender and sexuality alone and mainstream psychology—as well as the larger LGBT movement—has tended to ignore the formative ways oppressions are made to work together. Intersectionality and homonationalism are necessary concepts in a psychology of low-income, racially and ethnically diverse LGBTGNC liberation as well as an understanding of “resistance” that broadens to include building community among individuals as well as solidarity and coalition with sister social movements. Freedom of movement and the right to housing are explored as human rights relevant for a low-income LGBTGNC psychology of liberation.

In the 1840s, Nauvoo, Illinois, was a religious boomtown, the headquarters for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormonism), a controversial religion whose theology, social practices, and solidarity led to cultural conflict. By the mid-1840s, Joseph Smith, the religion’s prophet-leader, was killed, and thousands of Mormons relocated west to Utah. During the twentieth century, the Latter-day Saints returned to their former headquarters in Nauvoo, Illinois, in a dramatic way. Acquiring nearly half of the property in the city, the faith transformed the sleepy Mississippi River town into a historical re-creation of its earlier splendor. However, as it did in the nineteenth century, Mormonism’s presence in western Illinois in the twentieth century created conflict. Competing groups, including the religion’s sister faith, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ, offered a rival interpretation of Nauvoo’s past. Additionally, community members without a connection to either branch of Mormonism sought to preserve their own rich history in the city. Return to the City of Joseph: Modern Mormonism’s Contest for the Soul of Nauvoo examines the conflicts over historical memory that have developed as Mormonism returned to western Illinois. It focuses on the social history of the community, examining interactions between groups impacted by Mormonism’s touristic takeover. In a broader way, it also intersects with studies of historical tourism and pilgrimage.

This book shows how and why music became part of the social changes Europe faced in the aftermath of World War I. It focuses on the story of Black music in Paris and the people who created it, enjoyed it, criticized it, and felt at home when they heard it. African Americans, French Antilleans, and French West Africans wrote, danced, sang, and acted politically in response to the heightened visibility of racial difference in Paris during this era. They were consumed with questions that continue to resonate today. Could one be Black and French? Was Black solidarity more important than national and colonial identity? How could French culture include the experiences and contributions of Africans and Antilleans? From highly educated women, such as the Nardal sisters of Martinique, to the working Black musicians performing in crowded nightclubs at all hours, the book gives a fully rounded view of Black reactions to jazz in interwar Paris. It places that phenomenon in its historic and political context, and in doing so, it shows how music and music making formed a vital terrain of cultural politics. It shows how music making brought people together around pianos, on the dance floor, and through reading and gossip, but it did not erase the political, regional, and national differences among them. The book shows that many found a home in Paris but did not always feel at home. This book reveals these dimensions of music making, race, and cultural politics in interwar Paris.

AbstractThis chapter is about the political mobilisation of women from Poland living in Trondheim, in reaction to the Polish Constitutional Tribunal’s anti-abortion ruling, which triggered massive anti-governmental protests in many cities, towns and villages in Poland and abroad. Migrant women from Poland connected through online and offline networks to share their feelings of disappointment and anger, but also hope, and organised two solidarity strikes in Trondheim. Using the concepts of temporality, space, affective solidarity and belonging and looking at the solidarity strikes as a lens, the author reveals experiences, expectations and different aspects of the intersecting positionalities of women: as migrants, mothers, sisters and/or members of the LGBTQI+ community. She reflects on the questions that were addressed when the strike ‘travelled’ to Norway and how politics in Poland affected the everyday lives of women in Trondheim. She traces practices of solidarity and alliances and what they expose about the seams of temporality in the context of (un)belonging and local power asymmetries.

Abstract Solidarity plays a central role in political discourse. One’s sense of solidarity with others is essential to the political activities and associations which structure social and political life. But is solidarity, or fraternity, a value, as many suppose liberty and equality are? In answer, this article argues that the essentially partitive nature of solidarity rules out its playing a fundamental role in any ethical theory grounded on equal and universal respect. However, even if solidarity is not an intrinsic value, this is not to say that solidarity is not valuable. It is an important political ideal. One cannot embrace solely universal brotherly or sisterly love without giving up political life. The only ways that we have learned to be political agents is by finding solidarity with some against others. Solidarity expresses and structures the kinds of association needed to function well within a social and political setting.