Decentering Agency in North-South Solidarity: Arguing with My Past Self

The “Global Justice Movement” lived on the conviction that more transnational activism is normatively desirable. But after the postcolonial critique of global justice activism, the problem of hierarchy within movements has shaped the political consciousness of many activists in North-South solidarity, mainstreaming the worry that transnational solidarity mainly serves to feed the good conscience of Western liberals, consequently erasing the agency of Southern “partners”. Many movements are anxious about faux solidarity. This paper investigates what this anxiousness does in practice. Participant observation in a transnational advocacy network shows that while the liberal cooperation discourse reproduced transnational hierarchies when assuming the basic sameness of actors (no problematization of agency), the critique of these practices can reproduce marginalization of Southern activists by assuming their subordination in contexts of transnational solidarity (overproblematization of agency). While cosmopolitan assumptions encourage unreflexive cooperation based on superficial commonality, their critique can produce superficial reflexivity by reifying difference and undermining collective action. Focusing on my own failure to establish a level playing field through techniques derived from the critical whiteness discourse, this paper offers auto-ethnographic insights into the challenges of restoring agency in the global South. The article makes an argument about undermining non-Western agency in the course of trying to facilitate it. Instead of appealing to the theoretical/logical registers of the audience, it involves readers in the dilemmas of transnational solidarity projects and attempts to encourage reflexive processes that go beyond binary North-South narratives, suggesting the writing practice of ‘arguing by experience’.