The topic of the role of solidarity in society seems to be a complicated issue. First of all, because of the myriad of possible ways to understand the key concepts like society and solidarity, as well as because of the numerous approaches we can adopt when studying them - e.g. economic, political, sociological… not to mention personal opinions and beliefs. This became very clear to me when I first began talking about my ESC volunteering with the people around me.
Hence before talking about solidarity, it is good to unify our understanding of the key concepts including “society”. To this end, we turn to the Cambridge Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster dictionary which define solidarity as “agreement between and support for the members of a group” and “unity (as of a group or class) that produces or is based on community of interests, objectives, and standards”. Meanwhile, according to the various definitions the Merriam-Webster dictionary offers on the concept, society could roughly be boiled down to a group of people with common interests or traits, such as beliefs or nationality, which interact and form relationships with one another.
These definitions lead us to understand that solidarity and society are interconnected and rely heavily on the factors that unite people into social groups or societies in the first place. As these factors differ, the makeup of the social groups (age, gender, nationality…) and consequently the role of society in these groups vary. Therefore each social group should be studied individually. At the same time, it is important to note that there is no limit to these social groups, neither in number nor size, which makes identifying and analyzing the presence of solidarity even more difficult. During my volunteering, for example, I am a part of various social groups: the receiving country’s (Slovakia), my home country’s (Slovenia), the smaller group that makes up my receiving organisation and the broader group of ESC volunteers in Slovakia and across the world, just to name a few.
However, for solidarity to be present in a specific social group in the first place, a certain level of uniformity within that group seems to be imperative, or in other words, “to the extent that one identifies with the other one is helping out of solidarity” (Van Parijs). This also implies an inherent element of discrimination, namely between what are considered to be members and non-members of a certain group (Kymlicka). When volunteering in an ESC project in a foreign country this could have a negative impact on your ability to connect with the receiving society, especially if you come from a society that is culturally very different. Even so, there might be other shared traits that help cross that barrier. In my case, volunteering in a very diverse receiving organisation (a circus) and sharing a common interest in circus arts with the people around me has helped me to avoid any problems when forming connections.
All of this means that when we analyze the role of solidarity in society, we need to thoroughly examine what unifies the social group in question and therefore who it possibly discriminates against. At the same time, it is necessary to keep in mind other bigger or smaller social groups which might overlap with the observed one and could possibly skew our perception. In practice, this kind of considerations could help an ESC volunteer choose which project would be the best suited for them or identify deeper reasons behind problems they might face during the volunteering itself. Thus, making sure that their ESC volunteering experience is an excellent one and creates the most positive impact.
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Text a fotka: Živa Jamnik
Živa je dobrovoľníčkou programu Európskej komisie Európsky zbor solidarity na dobrovoľníckom projekte v organizácii Cirkuskus. Projekt bol podporený Európskou komisiou z programu Európsky zbor solidarity.
