Solidarity rights as duty and Ubuntu consciousness

Sylvia Bawa argues that solidarity rights discourses broaden conceptions of traditional human rights in ways that foreground our relational humanity thereby improving global accountability frameworks for historical injustices. Specifically, her aim is to draw attention to the work of rights (ie the right to solidarity) in institutionalizing rights consciousness and accountability for gender equality. How does the right to self-determination, enshrined within the Right to Solidarity, compel us to historicize hierarchies in knowledge production in our global world? What kinds of imaginations, populations and institutions are implicated in thinking about women’s and minority rights through the right to solidarity? She proposes that, two concepts, Ubuntu (I am because you are and we are because you are a relational humanity consciousness) and Ferootuma (duty), are crucial in enshrining a solidarity consciousness. In other words, given how intertwined our lives are, we have a duty to be in solidarity with others in the service of rights and our common humanity. Using the example of Feminist International Assistance Policies, Bawa emphasizes the need for democratic knowledge production (as part of the right to self-determination) as central to solidarity work.