New political solidarities form across unlikely groups without utopian claims

Evidence

Certainly, as Miranda Joseph (2002) has argued so well, we must remain alert here to the risks of fetishizing community through universal framings that adhere either to celebratory discourses of a unitary identity or to empty celebrations of heterogeneity. New subaltern solidarities such as those between anxious students, K-­poppers, and the Black Lives Matter movement or the unwieldy alliances between climate-­change activists and the rural anti-­fuel-­tax movement, make no claims to the “commons” of a fabled past (from which traditionally marginalized social groups were excluded). In that sense, counter-­speculative movements are not just symptomatic of our moment of flux but also constitutive of it. — Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou, Speculative Communities, 559

Categorization

• SEED: Essay angle: the surprising cross-alliances — K-pop fans and BLM, climate activists and anti-fuel-tax protesters — as evidence of a new political formation distinct from the old commons.
• STORYSTEM: The pairing of K-popper and rural anti-fuel-tax protester solidarities is odd and generative — a fictional setting where such unwieldy alliances form could dramatize the theme.
• XREF: connects to: Divergent interests can still yield genuine political coalitions between unequal groups