ABSTRACT
People organized a debate between leaders of a soon-to-be reconstituted anti-eviction movement, the Western Cape Housing Assembly, and the Chicago Anti-Eviction Campaign in Illinois. The conversations among these activists were enlightening and powerful to be transcribed. The narratives suggest that solidarities are viewed as episodes of creative practices that emerge when movements identify, share, and act on the basis of lived experiences, rather than on legal or constitutionally entrenched rights or expectations. Their exchange reveals that a political commitment to collaboratively build a trans-local alliance can work to transform from below the universalizing logic of dominant narratives such as human rights and provide a rationale for the ongoing illegal occupation of abandoned land and housing. In short, solidarities are creative and collaborative practices generated through struggle and dialogue; they create bonds that can destabilize dominant discourses of private property rights, national constitutional rights, and universal human rights by reflecting on shared struggles and creating new, trans-local practices of occupation.
