Europe is faced with a double crisis of solidarity. Unprecedented austerity measures are not only dramatically cutting European welfare state budgets but are also undermining popular support for social welfare. Simultaneously, refugees fleeing political and economic insecurity are seeking asylum on European shores and, despite some important exceptions, are being met with hostility and fear. Given the European project is largely premised on an idea of social solidarity, this double crisis appears to be challenging the very meaning of the European Union.

In this panel, we explore what solidarity means in this uncertain political moment. For the purposes of this panel, we employ a dual meaning of ‘solidarity’: it is both a structure of feeling that bonds and unites members of a group and it is a moral imperative that obliges group members to action on behalf of the collective’s interests and needs (Bayertz 1999; Scholz 2008). In particular, we focus on the challenges facing feminist political actors across Europe who seek to organise, mobilise and build coalitions to advance intersectional social justice claims. We have a broad understanding of feminist political actors and gendered mobilizations (Irvine, Lang, and Montoya 2015), including movements making claims on issues of gender, race, sexuality and disability. As intersectionality challenges dominant feminist politics, this panel attempts to map out the strategies activists employ to build coalitions and the successes and the failures of building solidarity across difference.