Toxic solidarity in AmeriCorps*VISTA

This article analyzes organizational practices of solidarity as they are enacted in AmeriCorps*VISTA. VISTA, a U.S. National Service program, was founded as part of the War on Poverty and operates by funding and managing volunteers who serve in private poverty-relief organizations. Using qualitative interview data and document analysis, we show how solidarity can become inoperative in neoliberal institutions, and we develop the concept of “toxic solidarity” as solidarity that is depoliticized via organizational mechanisms. Our exploration reveals that solidarity is undermined through practices that look like solidarity and take the place of solidarity in society, but are not solidarity in that they fail to mobilize for redress. Just as toxins poison the body by being mistaken for an actual hormone—thus blocking the action of the hormone—when so-called “solidaristic practices” reify difference and maintain inequity, they undermine possibilities for justice.