Solidarity, Worldmaking and Inter-Connected Geographies of Authoritarianism

Trade Unions and the Multiple Trajectories of Chile Solidarity

Bibliographic Data

ID21877618
AuthorsDavid Featherstone (0000-0001-5196-2486, University of Oxford), B Gowland (0000-0001-9090-0747, University of Oxford), Lazaras Karaliotas (University of Oxford)
Year2024
Volume11
Issue1
Publication date2024-07-31
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueAlternautas (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2057-4924 • E-ISSN: 2057-4924
PublisherUniversity of Warwick (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.31273/an.v11i1.1592
OpenAlexW4402879533
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited25

This paper intervenes in debates around the relationship between solidarity and worldmaking in the context of decolonisation and the Cold War. While work on worldmaking has drawn attention to key aspects of solidarity formation in this context (e.g. Getachew, 2019; Kelley, 2019), to date it has offered a limited engagement with the role of labour in the articulation of such solidarities. Here, we demonstrate how such a focus on worldmaking can help to highlight the multiple political trajectories that have been shaped through articulations between Chile solidarity and labour internationalism. Drawing on recent work on the Chilean Left, which stresses such multiple trajectories (eg Schlotterbeck, 2017), we provide three engagements with the opposition to authoritarian politics in different geographical contexts, foregrounding the role of exiled trade unionists involved in the Committee of the Exterior of the Central Única de Trabajadores de Chile (CEXCUT). These cases are the contestation of links between the Pinochet regime and Eric Gairy’s dictatorship in Grenada by Caribbean left activists in the Oilfield Workers Trade Union in Trinidad and Caribbean Labour Solidarity (CLS) in Britain; the role of Luis Figueroa of the CEXCUT and other Chilean exiles in shaping links between opposition to Pinochet and struggles for democratisation in the immediate post-junta period in Greece; and the role of maritime workers in British port cities such as Liverpool in contesting trade with Chile. We argue that through examining the relations between different trajectories of solidarity and interconnected geographies of authoritarianism, an engagement with worldmaking practices can help move beyond narrowly statist and methodologically nationalist frameworks

Authoritarianism · Democracy · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Solidarity · Labor Movements and Unions · Law

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