Abstract: Examining Solidarity through the Lens of Agamben, Dean, and Featherstone

On June 4th, 1989, the Chinese People's Liberation Army opened fire on peaceful protesters who had formed a community without “any preexisting conditions of belonging or likeness.” In his book "The Coming Community," Giorgio Agamben defined this type of community as one where "singularities form a community without affirming an identity, that humans co-belong without any representable condition of belonging." Agamben's work challenges traditional notions of solidarity by emphasizing the political agency of groups that bond in this way. Jodi Dean, in "Solidarity among Strangers, Feminism after Identity Politics," discusses the concept of solidarity in relation to identity politics and the idea of a "we without labels." In turn, David Featherstone has built upon this foundation to underline the political agency of solidarity regarding the study of International Relations in his book "Solidarity,” which focuses on how people create solidarities from below and the potential for international solidarity to reshape the world on “more equal terms.” This book review will address how these views on solidarity relate to one another—prying the reader to the significance of the subject matter. Additionally, this review will examine how significant these works are compared to contemporary literature.