Visible repair – An ethics of solidarity in a work of hardening: Dr Su-Ming Khoo, NUI Galway

Event Date: 1 May 2019

Speaker: Dr Su-Ming Khoo, School of Political Science and Sociology, National University of Ireland, Galway

Time: 3.30pm

Location: The Lounge, Strathclyde Students Union

This Work, Employment & Organisation Research Seminar is part of the Work, Labour and Globalisation Research Network Festival of Land, Labour & Justice, April 29 - May 7)

This contribution responds to the Work, Labour and Globalisation Research Network’s MayDay programme (see attached) by looking more carefully at the ‘broken faces’ of political identities – identities that define collective political consciousness and action in terms of class, race, religion and gender divisions. Across places as diverse as Brexit Britain, Trump’s America, Bolsanaro’s Brazil, Orban’s Hungary, ‘Law and Justice’ Poland, politicians have claimed that the hardening of divisive identities, exclusion and discrimination are what the ‘left behind’ democratically demand.

We need to politically and sociologically question the nature of the disconnects between people’s everyday concerns at the level of their own lives (typically education, unemployment, the cost of living, health, or pensions) and political concerns at the national level, which are likely to be over immigration and cultural differences (Mondon and Winter 2017; 2019). The populist racialisation of the ‘white’ working class obscures and selectively misrepresents the data about class concerns, while enabling white identity to be asserted, legitimised and politically mainstreamed (Mondon and Winter 2017).

This normalises racism and far right views; while Black, Minority Ethnic and immigrant experiences and interests which include working class interests are marginalised. Too little attention is paid to around half of the population who don’t vote, are disengaged or actively disenfranchised. Racist, elitist and authoritarian politics are maintained as a status quo, while justifying the spread of resentment, hate and violence by racist and right-wing groups.

Looking back, historical structures of exclusion have compromised solidarity’s prospects by separating and hierarchically dividing identities along the lines of gender, race and coloniality, while emptying out requirements for care and collective responsibility (Khoo 2015). Looking forward, I suggest that an art of ‘visible repair’ underpins a more care-full, critical and reflective ethics of solidarity. Addressing brokenness and visible repair opens up approaches to solidarity which embody an alternative ethics and politics of caring democracy.

Published: 16 April 2019