‘Solidarity’ in the migration and refugee literature: analysis of a concept

The concept of solidarity has a long history in the social sciences and humanities, and has received considerable attention in recent migration and refugee scholarship. However, there is no consistent definition of or approach to this concept in this literature. Rather, various types of solidarity with different philosophical underpinnings coexist. In this article, we draw on existing solidarity scholarship to develop a typology of the concept of solidarity; we then apply this typology to a systematic sample of recent scholarly migration and refugee articles. Our results show the complex, multi-dimensional, and normative application of the concept of solidarity in this sample. We find that various types of solidarity align with particular themes, such as religion and family, European Union refugee politics, humanitarianism and hospitality, and migrant activism and labour organising. Nevertheless, there is considerable overlap and connections between types.