大象传媒

In the spring of 2017, I was writing my bachelor's thesis on solidarity within feminism and discussing building communities based on similarity in identity or experience, a common enemy or cause. This was the spring when Donald Trump had been elected president in the U.S. for the first time. I didn't know then that eight years later I would again be thinking about solidarity and community a few months after Donald Trump was re-elected. This time, I am sitting in London working on my doctoral dissertation on gender, sexuality, and fatness[i]. Since this is my first travel letter, I want to write about something occupying my mind beyond my own research project, namely solidarity and practicing solidarity when it costs something, not just when it is comfortable. A travel letter should ideally contain descriptions from the journey, and I will provide some of those, but what is happening in the world seems acutely more important than what is happening in my little bubble in London.

Photo:

Sunniva 脕rja Tobiasen

The image above is from 5 April 2017 when I wrote my bachelor thesis. The image is edited on Instagram.

There has been a call for solidarity with vulnerable researchers and academics in the USA who are now losing or are at risk of losing financial funding for important research projects. At the same time, there has been an ongoing discussion about solidarity with Palestinians, and whether the (new) university senior management[ii] at the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo will support an academic boycott of Israel. On another side of the political landscape and closer to my own research, I have also noted the debate in Denmark about the citizen proposal for legislative change to protect fat people from weight discrimination[iii].听

I recommend listening to the Danish doctors Rasmus K酶ster-Rasmussen and Christian V酶htz who talk about the citizen proposal[iv]. It is about including body size and weight as part of the body diversity that should be protected from discrimination. Several of the authors behind the Danish report "Weight Stigmatization" published in 2024 are the same ones presenting the citizen proposal[v]. These are all discussions about solidarity at the political level, institutional level, and individual level 鈥� and why solidarity is important in all cases, especially when it demands something of us. I don't think these topics are separate from each other, and I hope you will take the time to read.

Power to define what is important, real, and meaningful

In my bachelor's thesis, I wrote: "One of my first lecturers said that it is sociology's task to uncover hidden power. There is power in defining what is important, real, and meaningful." My interest was in the foundation of solidarity, not its practice or history, and I based my understanding of solidarity on David Featherstone's[vi] definition:

I define solidarity as a relation forged through political struggle which seeks to challenge forms of oppression. (...) Solidarity has often been understood as being about likeness. This approach obscures the importance of solidarities in constructing relations between places, activities, diverse social groups. This can involve the cementation of existing identities and power relations. It can, however, as frequently be about the active creation of new ways of relation. It is through being attentive to such relations that the dynamism and inventiveness of solidarity can emerge.

I think one reason I have been thinking about solidarity and my bachelor's thesis is my first impression of London while these debates about solidarity have been ongoing. This is a metropolis with about nine million inhabitants as of November 2024, which involves a great diversity of people[vii]. I have never been to London before and am perhaps not the most well-travelled - the combination of a lack of finances for travelling earlier in life and a later fear of flying is not good for exploring the world. Like many other Norwegians, I鈥檝e mainly travelled in Scandinavia and along the German border. In my childhood, I had a father who loved to drive and an extended family spread all over; from Finnmark to Flensburg.

Photo:

Sunniva 脕rja Tobiasen

The image is taken from Westminster Bridge and shows the Parliament building, Big Ben and a characteristic, red double-decker bus.

A nice thing about living somewhere for a longer period is that you get the opportunity to experience a different everyday life. I now live a little outside the centre of London, with a commute of about 50 minutes door-to-door. This involves, at its most efficient, a trip on the "overground" and a trip on the "underground," as well as the walk to and from the stations. I am impressed by the public transport in this metropolis and the accompanying travel culture.听

It is remarkable to flow in a large river of people who naturally keep to the left from platform to train, through the station to the next train, off the train and out onto the street. It is so quiet, almost no one speaks, and everyone weaves between each other and through the various transitions before we spread out and go our separate ways. It is nevertheless an attentive silence. People take care, move and adapt, offer their seat to a pregnant person wearing a "baby on board" badge, and offer help if someone has something heavy to carry up a staircase.听

I have rarely seen such a large diversity of people cooperate so well as on the public transport here. It is of course not a political issue for most to take the underground to work, although public transport is an important political issue for the community. For me, who is primarily used to public transport in Oslo, it has been noticeable how accustomed I am to the individual traveller only taking care of themselves. I will not paint London as problem-free, but it is nevertheless nice to be somewhere where it seemingly is possible to navigate a kind of attention to the stranger you travel next to. This gives me a sense of humanity even in a city of nine million.

Photo:

Sunniva 脕rja Tobiasen

My neighbourhood in Hackney.

Vulnerable research

I have also had the opportunity to experience Judith Butler while I have been here in London. I write "experience" because it is an experience to sit in a large hall together with an absolute majority of enthusiastic and interested individuals and a few loud hecklers. Butler is a wise communicator, dynamically alternating between seriousness and humour, and quick with witty responses to both good questions from their conversation partner and from troublemakers in the hall. Butler[viii] has written about and spoken to us seriously about the changes in the USA with Trump's second term as president and the countless orders and directives that have come out 听in recent months. I follow several fellow PhD students on social media, and Katherine W. Bogen, who has a PhD project at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on partner violence with a focus on bisexual women, has spoken out about this[ix]. Bogen had her financial support cancelled from The National Institute for Health (NIH) and reads aloud in her video from what is written in the rejection letter:

Research programs based primarily on artificial and non-scientific categories, including amorphous equity objectives, are antithetical to scientific inquiry, do nothing to expand our knowledge of living systems, provide low returns on investment, and ultimately do not enhance health, lengthen life or reduce illness.

It is a frightening insight into the concrete consequences for research and academia of the new administrative and legal changes in the USA. It is also not the only country where gender and sexuality research and researchers, my colleagues and me included, are particularly under pressure. I was recently asked if I see a future in academia, and I answered honestly that I don't know, since there is such great uncertainty. There has for a long time been an extremely demanding work situation for PhDs and fresh researchers with unpredictable and short-term job opportunities; a situation that is burdensome over time. But now there is also a threat to even be able to research the topics I work with. The National Committee for Gender Research[x] in Norway issued a statement in February where among other things they write:

Trump's attacks on several fields, including gender research, constitute a political attack on academic freedom and freedom of expression. The Trump administration's aggressive outbursts against research and academic freedom are just the preliminary culmination of trends that have been ongoing over time.

It has been great to see and read about an outspoken solidarity with researchers in the USA who are now experiencing their research funds being cut and positions being at risk[xi]. I have talked with colleagues from several higher education institutions about how we can all contribute to building solidarity and ensuring cooperation for the future. I not only hope, but expect, that in solidarity we will continue to support and create opportunities for cooperation and protect important research that is particularly vulnerable; that we seek cooperation with organizations and across educational and research institutions, professional communities, and colleagues. To borrow Butler's[xii] words about solidarity:

When one denounces an injustice in order to show that one is a person who denounces injustice, whether or not we are effective, whether or not we are in solidarity with others, then we act only as individuals, and our denunciations fade almost as soon as they are enunciated. If my purpose is merely to show that I oppose emerging fascism, that is not quite enough. We will not make a new world through taking moral stances that only fortify individualism, and take us away from collective action.

Another example of a solidarity struggle I have observed in Norway, especially recently, is how Norwegian universities and colleges meet demands for an academic boycott in response to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian territories and inhumane warfare against Palestinians. This is about standing in solidarity with Palestinian universities, Palestinian colleagues, and students.

Solidarity is an intellectual and academic duty

The two largest universities in Bergen (UiB) and Oslo (UiO) have conducted rector elections this spring. Both candidates were asked through debate and demonstrations how they stand on the question of solidarity with Palestinian colleagues and students through academic boycott. I was not impressed by the board at the University of Oslo's refusal to boycott Israel in 2024, nor by the then rector and chairman Svein St酶len who stated: "As an institution, it is our task 鈥� also the board's 鈥� to protect the academic freedom of the individual scientific employee."[xiii] I would argue, in line with Butler, that we do not create a new world by distancing ourselves from fascism in ways that reinforce individualism and take us away from collective actions. During the rector election debates at UiO and UiB this spring, the candidates have again spoken out against an academic boycott[xiv]. As colleague Kjersti Aarstein said when an academic boycott was discussed at a board meeting at the University of Bergen in 2024, when she commented on how the question of an academic boycott is a difficult one since academic freedom is so highly valued: "One must think carefully about it, but in this case, there are compelling reasons to boycott."[xv]

It is difficult to understand why academic institutions do not explicitly stand in solidarity with the leadership of fifteen Palestinian universities, that made their appeal as early as November 2023, now that we know what Israel has done and continues to do to Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. In this context, there is no academic freedom to be found for Palestinians, while we maintain the opportunity to collaborate with institutions like Tel Aviv University that actively develop technology for the Israeli army[xvi]. I will quote what is stated in the Palestinian appeal[xvii]:

We also hold Israeli universities responsible, as they have been indispensable to the regime of settler colonial oppression and apartheid, complicit in grave violations of human rights including developing weaponry, military doctrines, and legal justification for the indiscriminate, mass targeting of Palestinians. (...) We urge the international academic community to fulfil its intellectual and academic duty to seek the truth and hold perpetrators of genocide accountable. Israeli universities, complicit in human rights violations, should face international isolation. In unity and with unwavering determination, we declare that justice will prevail. We will not be silenced; we will resist, remember, and record.

I hope my colleagues across universities and colleges, together with the students, will continue to challenge those who lead and govern our institutions to dare show solidarity even when it is not comfortable; when it costs a little extra. Just as it is not enough to just wave the Pride flag in June without having meaningful and ongoing institutional support for vulnerable queer employees, students, and gender and sexuality research throughout the year, we cannot only have solidarity with Palestinians when it looks good or is comfortable.听

As employees, students, and institutions, we have an intellectual and academic duty to hold those who perpetrate or support the abuse against Palestinians accountable. The countless Palestinian educational and research institutions that have been completely destroyed, and students and staff who have been killed or displaced, need us to stand loudly and clearly with them. If we are to talk about the power to define what is "important, real, and meaningful," it is difficult to understand those who can talk about what is happening in the USA and about the situation of Palestinians while simultaneously promoting academic freedom without academic boycott.

Power to define who is important

I have had a fantastic time here in London, and I take nothing for granted. At times, it has felt absurd to have such a good time when there are so many terrible things happening in the world. To give a general recommendation to all my fellow PhDs and those who work with them: Travel if you can and help PhDs go out into the world. I was strongly encouraged to travel by both the leader and my supervisor at the Centre for Women's and Gender Research at the University of Bergen. I was also awarded a project grant from the L. Meltzer University Foundation so that I could afford a longer stay in London.听

We need to build more solidarity networks, not just for academic communities, but because academic freedom is not guaranteed. For me, it has been affirming to establish a closer collaboration with my supervisor here in London, who also researches gender, sexuality, and fatness. There is little which is as academically and personally affirming as discussing with someone who understands the entire context of one's own project and situation. The University of Westminster and the Centre for Social Justice Research have welcomed me warmly, and the time here has given me space and time to think, read, and write for a longer and more-or-less uninterrupted period.

Photo:

Sunniva 脕rja Tobiasen

The image is from Stonehenge right before sunrise on the spring equinox.

I want to conclude by sharing something closer to my own research project, namely solidarity with fat people and a fatter solidarity. In Denmark, as mentioned, a citizen proposal has been put forward for legislative change that will protect fat people from weight discrimination. This is a discussion that follows a trend we see in several places around the world; namely, recognizing discrimination based on weight and size as something we need to take seriously.听

I also follow the public discussion about fatness and dieting in Norway, where those who have the power of definition quickly reveal themselves to those who look with a critical eye. To borrow a question from social commentator and retired dieter, Marianne S忙b酶[xviii]: Why does the healthcare system cling to lifestyle interventions of the "eat less, exercise more" type when dealing with fat people 鈥� when research shows that it does not work? We can take this question even further: Why are we as a society so incredibly focused on and invested in slimming people down at any cost? I recommend reading and listening to what Marianne writes and says. She does important work in challenging established harmful discourses about fatness and dieting, and she highlights researchers and healthcare professionals who represent more nuanced and humane perspectives on these topics.

What I have been engaged in over the past few months is how norms, humanness and humanity are interconnected. I examine the relationship between the normative (fat) bodily frameworks for gender and sexuality and humanness/humanity in light of Butler's theoretical framework. Among other things, Butler[xix] writes about "intelligibility" and how being perceived and understood as an equal human being is based on norms that are socially constructed and maintained. That is, whether those who are considered unintelligible (incoherent) are those who "fail" or are perceived as norm-breaking. As a society, we dehumanize those of us who break with idealized bodily norms for gender and sexuality based on more than weight, size, and shape. Fatness carries negative notions of health, morality, and dignity. This is also intertwined with gender, sexuality, race/ethnicity, age, class, and ability. Butler[xx] writes in their work about recognition and acknowledgment, and I want to share one last quote:

If we struggle for rights, we are not simply struggling for rights that attach to my person, but we are struggling to be conceived as persons. And there is a difference between the former and the latter. If we are struggling for rights that attach, or should attach, to my personhood, then we assume that personhood is already constituted. But if we are struggling not only to be conceived as persons, but to create a social transformation of the very meaning of personhood, then the assertion of rights becomes a way of intervening into the social and political process by which the human is articulated.

Now towards the end of my stay, I think about those who have the power to define who is considered important to fight for and who are worthy recipients of our solidarity. It is easy to see how the openness about the atrocities in Gaza has changed many people's attitudes towards Palestinians. I believe that for many, Palestinians have been humanized for the first time. When we fight in solidarity for academic boycott, we fight for the rights and safety of Palestinians based on humanity. When those in power in the USA reject the research of PhD student Bogen and write that it does not contribute to increased knowledge and does not promote health, extend life, or reduce illness, they could not be more wrong. Bogen and many others who conduct gender and sexuality research see people and challenge the norms that marginalize and exclude the norm-breaking ways we can have a body or live our lives.听

A fight against discrimination of fat people, weight stigma, and outdated attitudes in the healthcare system is also about challenging the notions of who is considered important to fight for and deserves our solidarity. There is an expression that says, "it hurts because it matters." I don't think it needs to hurt for something to be meaningful, but if it costs you something to be in solidarity, it is all the more important that you practice it. For the value lies in who and what we practice solidarity with, and the humanity we practice through our solidarity.

I am both excited and anxious about going home. I look forward to continuing my research, discussing with colleagues, and eventually sharing more about the project when my thoughts are fully developed. What I dread is leaving the bubble while I enjoy the sun, spring, and diversity here in London.

Photo:

Sunniva 脕rja Tobiasen

Paddington graffiti at Waterloo station.

References

[i] /skok/164926/en-tjukkere-kj%C3%B8nns-og-seksualitetsforskning

[ii] In Norway the Rector is the person who is the Chair of the University Board and also has the ultimate responsibility for and management of all actvity at the University. This is the same for both the University of Bergen and the University of Oslo.
Source Bergen: /en/rektoratet#:~:text=The%20Rector%20is%20the%20Chair,University%20of%20Bergen%20(UiB)
Source Oslo:

[iii]

[iv]

[v]

[vi] Featherstone, David, (2012) Solidarity. Zed Books Limited

[vii]

[viii]

[ix]

[x]

[xi]

[xii] Butler, Judith (2024) 鈥淛udgement, Freedom, Solidarity: Thinking with Arendt鈥�, Journal of Italian Philosophy (7/24), s.212-230

[xiii]

[xiv]

[xv] 听

[xvi]

[xvii]

[xviii]

[xix] Butler, J. (1999). Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity (10. anniversary ed). Routledge.

[xx] Butler, J. (2004). Undoing Gender. Routledge.