Inklusive Solidarität: Ethnografische Erkundungen im urbanen Raum

Abstract

Solidary action can be felt and experienced in specific places and unfolds its power of action in urban space. Based on the results of an empirical teaching and research project, this article provides insight into places of solidarity in the city of Trier. The project’s results make one thing obvious: Solidarity-based flat-sharing communities, cafés, free shops, and even shoe stores tell their own story of solidarity. The protagonists of these places constitute emancipatory life practices of social togetherness and create hubs to connect people instead of (re-)producing exclusion. The connecting bond is constituted from the shared experience of finding a sense of belonging in the safe space of a Queer-Café to the solidary practice of negotiating a good price for a pair of shoes, depending on one’s own financial situation. The paper shows that the common feature of these diverse places is the creation of an inclusive solidarity as an urban response to social exclusion and division tendencies. With the inclusive orientation, these places generate social impulses that are important for all people in society. They create new educational and socialisation institutions in the urban space.

Keywords: solidarity, inclusion, inclusive solidarity, social work, spaces, social spaces, refugee migration, solidarity cities, convivialism