Solidarity in Practice
Moral Protest and the US Security State
Cambridge Studies in Contentious Politics Series

Cross-border solidarity has captured the interest and imagination of scholars, activists and a range of political actors in such contested areas as the US-Mexico border and Guantanamo Bay. Chandra Russo examines how justice-seeking solidarity drives activist communities contesting US torture, militarism and immigration policies. Through compelling and fresh ethnographic accounts, Russo follows these activists as they engage in unusual and high risk forms of activism (fasting, pilgrimage, civil disobedience). She explores their ideas of solidarity and witnessing, which are central to how the activists explain their activities. This book adds to our understanding of solidarity activism under new global arrangements, and illuminates the features of movement activity that deepen activists' commitment by helping their lives feel more humane, just and meaningful. Based on participant observation, interviews, surveys and hundreds of courtroom statements, Russo develops a new theorization of solidarity that will take a central place in social movement studies.

1. 'Not free to be completely human'; 2. 'I'm ruined for life!' Witnessing empire; 3. Ritual protest as testimony; 4. The visceral logics of embodied resistance; 5. Ascetic practice and prefigurative community; 6. The complications of solidarity witness; 7. 'Knowing things impossible to un-know'.

Chandra Russo is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Colgate University, New York, where she teaches courses in social movements, activism and anti-racism. Before earning her Ph.D. from the University of California, Santa Barbara, she spent several years working on immigrant justice issues in New York State, Central Mexico and Colorado. Her research and writing on these matters has been published in numerous venues, including Mobilization, Race & Class, Interface, and the Denver Post.