Transnational Solidarity Organisations and their Main Features, before and since 2008: Adaptive and/or Autonomous?

Abstract

This article highlights the importance of crisis-related transformations experienced during the 2008–2016 period by transnationally oriented, citizen-led solidarity organisations, a topic that has received scant scholarly attention. It offers an exploratory, comparative analysis of the main features of these Transnational Solidarity Organisations (TSOs) which rests on a comprehensive conceptual framework of ‘alternative forms of resilience’, referring to the ability to bounce back from hardship and meet human needs in challenging times. We apply a new methodology, Action Organisation Analysis, which is based on information coded from organisational websites of solidarity organisations retrieved from online directories. Using a sample of 1753 TSOs, we examine two types of approaches: adaptive (philanthropic, formal, or reformist) and autonomous (mutual-help, informal, or contentious) ones. We document differential transformations for adaptive and autonomous TSOs, as reflected in their major characteristics, that is, their value frames, partners, and routes to achieve their goals and supplementary actions, across time and in three different issue fields: migration, disabilities, and unemployment. Notable are the increasing shifts towards social change and protests, especially for unemployment TSOs, and less so for migration ones. The findings contribute to debates on the impact of crises on activist solidarity organisations by documenting the dialectics of autonomy and adaptation across contemporary social issues, as well as by highlighting the importance of TSOs’ hybrid features. This analysis will also be useful for future work on transnational solidarity organisations and their transitions in a rapidly evolving global society.