Description
Reorientating global peace towards the transnational rather than international promotes the voices of those who have experienced injustice by creating links beyond the borders of the nation-state through horizontal thinking. Transnational solidarity movements have been significant in enabling and empowering connections among those facing injustice beyond the borders of nation-states. These connections allow an exploration of how individuals organise themselves around the shared goal of fighting oppression. Such relationships thus help to emphasise who is not represented by human rights. This paper is an interdisciplinary study. It builds on Inés Valdez’s theorisation of transnational cosmopolitanism, influenced by W.E.B. Dubois, (Valdez, 2019) with reference to feminist criticisms to develop a theoretical framework from a ‘bottom-up’ approach. The paper then applies this framework to empirical discussions of how communities in Northern Ireland, particularly Northern Irish Catholics, have placed themselves in wider solidarity movements since the formation of the country in 1921. In doing so, it explores how solidarity movements have occurred in different domains, from street protests to football stadia. It examines and criticises the concept of solidarity, including contentions that solidarity reduces agency of those facing injustice. As the discourse of transnational injustice continues to grow, so too may the significance of transnational solidarity.
