Solidarity Without Groups: How Non-White Meta-Categories Constrain and Enable Intra-Minority Coalition-Building

• In Event: The Problematics of Racial and Ethnic Coalition-Building in an Era of Explicit Threat

Abstract

How is intra-minority solidarity cultivated or diluted? What factors enable coalition-building amongst minoritized individuals across national contexts. This paper develops a framework to study intra-minority solidarity, using the case study of debates about the categories “people of color” in the US and “BAME” in the UK. I draw on work on imagined relationships, the sociology of morality, and racial conceptualizations to explain how these categories enable and constrain opportunities for interracial solidarity. Specifically, I show that moral background categories shape shared meanings about the past, expectations of imagined relationships, and conceptualizations of racial justice that influence the viability of solidarity.

Author

• Mari Sanchez, Harvard University