‘My Brother’s Keeper’? Inter‐ethnic Solidarity and Human Rights

By Alison Brysk and Daniel Wehrenfennig

Volume 10, Issue 1, pages 1-18

Why and how do communities that have been victims of human rights abuse advocate for new, unrelated victims of ethnic persecution? Scattered but persistent inter‐ethnic solidarity challenges materialist views of ethnic communities as interest groups, and highlights the importance of social learning and communicative action. In order to trace some promising pathways of inter‐ethnic solidarity, we examine human rights campaigns on behalf of other beleaguered groups by American Jews, Northern Irish Catholics, and African‐Americans. We find that necessary conditions of a structural base and social capital are activated by bridging narratives of human rights that promote Other‐identification among unrelated groups. Analysis of such campaigns has the potential to improve our understanding of ‘rooted cosmopolitanism’ as an alternative to competitive nationalism and a situated basis for universalist humanitarianism.

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