This article focuses on the theory of solidarity presented by Émile Durkheim in The Division of Labour in Society ([1893] 1969). Despite its popularity, the distinction between mechanical and organic solidarity has received a lot of criticism. Durkheim allegedly was unable to demonstrate the superior integrating force of modern organic solidarity, while this was his central thesis at the time. A second critique challenges his macrostructural point of view. However, by confronting Durkheim’s classical theory with contemporary work, notably Honneth’s theory (...) of recognition, we can deduce a reformulated framework that is less vulnerable to the afore-mentioned critiques. On the one hand, we specify mechanical and organic solidarity as a dialectical synthesis of both internalized universalistic principles and particularistic emotional orientations. On the other, we incorporate the foregoing typology in a cyclical model that implies interacting processes of inclusion and individualization. (shrink)

This article takes interest in solidarity as sovereign responsibility. Sovereign responsibility is a nonproductive form of care that emerges at the interface of order defined by a privileging of economy and a general economy defined by a return to order of life lost to death. It is this return that unveils the existence and operations of a general economy that order presupposes. The article locates its discussion of sovereign responsibility at two levels of relationality. Firstly, it situates its deliberations concerning (...) sovereign responsibility in the family and among kin. Here it argues that as a form of solidarity, sovereign responsibility positions relations among kin as those of neighbours. Secondly, it shows that the question of the neighbour extends beyond kinship relations and into the realm of extra-kinship relations where others and strangers appear as neighbours. The overall argument of the article is that sovereign responsibility holds potential to facilitate an Afrocentred and counter-hegemonic response to the modern experience of alienation.Contribution: The modern experience of alienation, as well as how it can be challenged, are of interest to this article. The article recognises that numerous attempts have been made to try and address this problematic of alienation in modernity. What it claims has not been done is to engage that problem by taking Africa as an idea, and not just geography, seriously. (shrink)