Sharing and inclusion: generosity, trust and response to vulnerability in the distant past (original) (raw)
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Solidarity at a Time of Risk: Vulnerability and the Turn to Mutual Aid
TOPIA: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies, 2020
In the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the concept of mutual aid was rapidly taken up as an ideal model for solidarity. This paper examines why mutual aid may have found such popularity in this moment by examining the affective underpinnings of risk, vulnerability and the imperative to care. Rather than celebrate the turn to mutual aid as the best path towards justice, however, the paper suggests that we think strategically about the models we use for survival, by considering mutual aid as one strategy among many for generating our responses to the harms that predate, and are intensified through, the pandemic.
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“Help Exchange”: Generosity And Vulnerability In Network Building
In my essay I am trying to find links between Marcel Mauss’s theory of gift exchange and two recent self-help books on networking written by American motivational speaker and author Keith Ferrazzi. Ferrazzi does not write explicitly about “help exchange”, but his ideas of generosity and vulnerability connected with the acts of giving help and asking for help could be compared with the Maussian model ‘to give, to receive, to reciprocate’. However, the application of Mauss’s view of exchange to a recent case of self-help books can be only partial. Mauss perceived the system of total services as a fundamental logic hidden beneath the surface of primitive society, while Ferrazzi exposed help exchange as only possible (though desirable) pattern of behaviour. But the most crucial difference is that Mauss described gift exchange as a reflection of social structure and hierarchy, while Ferrazzi observed generous help exchange as something that had the potential to challenge social structure, and his personal example of social mobility served him as a key proof.
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Most disability theologians consider vulnerability the cornerstone of personal transformation and the development of inclusive communities. For them, being aware of one’s vulnerability is synonymous with learning to show solidarity with others, especially persons with disabilities. The article argues that while this can be the case, it is not the rule. Being vulnerable can also lead people to individualistic and selfish behaviour. What makes the difference is the a priori ethical framework in which people interpret vulnerability and not vulnerability itself. To make this argument, the article draws on two Eastern Orthodox sources: Savatie Baștovoi and Maria Skobstova.
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Solidarity beyond charity… The world is losing the real meaning of solidarity caused by multiple crises that boost both feelings: will for being united and help others, and at the same time, the paranoia of losing what they have already gained. It is important to remember that historically, solidarity has been associated with charity and not with steady action, through the public sector and a committed political sector. Solidarity becomes a game of "helping vulnerable people" and not "building empowerment". As a consequence, there is not a circle of empowerment that reduces vulnerabilities and helps on the road to create resilience but the vicious circle in which more vulnerabilities create the idea of more sense of ownership from institutions "in charge of helping". A true negative link, especially for the humanitarian sector. A wrong power that gets into unsustainable systems that develop mechanisms of selfishness to protect themselves and survive through financial and institutional crises. The axis of interest is around themselves within endless circles of self--empowerment instead of "releasing "others from being "aid receivers" by delivering tools that transforms them into "producers". All the countries that have overcome poverty have created their own systems of resilience based on empowering individuals, not institutions.
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