Atmospheres and activism: rethinking solidarity politics

Abstract

How and why does left solidarity fail women of color? Given the rising tide of far right extremism, this is an urgent question for social movement actors who wish to build sustainable coalitions for progressive politics. In this paper, we examine the dynamics of solidarity via a novel approach to the study of “atmospheres.” While scholars of emotions have identified the importance of atmospheres in social and political life, they are unable to answer their own important question: What do atmospheres make possible politically? We bring together the concept of racialized solidarity with the sensuous inequalities of activist spaces. We identify visual, sonic, somatic, and emotional inequalities that work together to produce what we name as the racialized atmospherics of activist spaces, in which the mood is systematically mobilized against women of color.

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Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Emejulu, A. https://orcid.org/0009-0003-0840-4886 Bassel, L.
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© 2026 The Authors. Except as otherwise noted, this author-accepted version of a journal article published in Politics & Gender is made available via the University of Sheffield Research Publications and Copyright Policy under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ © The Author(s), 2026. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Women, Gender, and Politics Research Section of the American Political Science Association. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Keywords:	women of color; activism; Europe; atmospheres; racialization; solidarity
Dates:	Accepted: 18 May 2026 Published (online): 22 July 2026 Published: 22 July 2026
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Social Sciences (Sheffield) > School of Sociological Studies, Politics and International Relations
Date Deposited:	27 May 2026 10:05
Last Modified:	03 Aug 2026 15:21
Status:	Published online
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1017/S1743923X26100944
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:241350

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Atmospheres and activism: rethinking solidarity politics

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