ABSTRACT
This article attempts to revise solidarity from its primary historical meaning as a relationship binding all the members of a single cohesive group or society toward a conception more suitable for the new forms of transnational interrelationships that mark contemporary globalization. It considers the supportive relations we can come to develop with people at a distance, given the interconnections that are being established through work or other economic ties, through participation in Internet forums and other new media, or indirectly through environmental impacts. Solidarity relations will be reconceptualized here as potentially contributing to the emergence of more democratic forms of transnational interaction within regional or more fully global frameworks of human rights, for which I have argued previously.1 Beyond this, I will also argue that affective relations of solidarity are in fact an essential complement to the recognition of these human rights themselves. This new notion of solidarity is understood here as one of overlapping solidarity networks. It will be seen that this conception also engages the idea of justice, and indeed perhaps of global justice, in an important way.
