Solidarity and Allyship : Engendering Positive Peace

This chapter explores the ways that solidarity and allyship have the potential to support Galtung’s aspirations for the development of a state of positive peace. The relationship between solidarity and allyship, and positive peace, is established first, through an examination of Galtung’s early writings in which solidarity and allyship featured as an important driver in the development of positive peace. Second, an exploration of key solidarity and allyship literature demonstrates how the ultimate goal of ending structural violence and engendering justice is one that is echoed in the positive peace framework, as well as other elements that are central to both such as social education, transcending boundaries and love. However, for solidarity and allyship to effectively support the development of a state of positive peace, its limitations must be examined and addressed, and these include: understanding and challenging the privileges that allies embody that maintain structural violence; carefully dissecting hope and its deployment in solidarity work as a catalyst for transformation; and ensuring that there is space for a multiplicity of views and approaches, where borderlines and powerlines are transcended into new relationships that weave together a dynamic and lived experience of a state of positive peace.

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