Lee Michael Shults

• Shults, Lee Michael (2024). Avoiding parasitical uses of global solidarity. Frontiers in Human Dynamics. 6. doi: 10.3389/fhumd.2024.1305952. Full text in Research Archive
• Korsvik, Valerie-Peggy Immy; Shults, Lee Michael; Haaland, Hanne & Wallevik, Hege (2023). Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity (CIGS), Frontier Africans, and Experiences of Translocal Networking. In Haaland, Hanne; Kinsbergen, Sara; Schulpen, Lau & Wallevik, Hege (Ed.), The rise of small-scale development organisations: The emergence, positioning and role of citizen aid actors. Routledge. ISSN 9781032132327. Full text in Research Archive
• Haaland, Hanne; Shults, Lee Michael & Wallevik, Hege (2023). Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity (CIGS) as new development actors in Norway - an exploration of how and why they emerge, The Rise of Small-Scale Development Organisations: The Emergence, Positioning and Role of Citizen Aid Actors. Routledge. ISSN 9781032132327. Full text in Research Archive
• Shults, Lee Michael (2022). Reason-based deference or ethnocentric inclusivity? Avery Kolers, Richard Rorty, and the motivational force of global solidarity. Journal of Global Ethics. ISSN 1744-9626. 19(1). doi: 10.1080/17449626.2022.2138945. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  This article uses what Patti Tamara Lenard refers to as the cosmopolitan problem of motivation to discuss the roles of loyalty in two philosophical accounts of global solidarity. Avery Kolers’ Kantian, deontological approach to solidarity as reason-based deference is contrasted with Richard Rorty's controversial, anti-Kantian description of solidarity as ethnocentric inclusivity generated through sentimental education. This article offers critical reflections on the work of these two influential thinkers and combines elements of their theories to contribute a limited but useful response to Lenard's concerns regarding loyalty and the motivation of global solidarity.

• Shults, Lee Michael; Haaland, Hanne & Wallevik, Hege (2021). Localizing Global Solidarity: Humanitarian Aid in Lesvos. Frontiers in Political Science. 3. doi: 10.3389/fpos.2021.690907. Full text in Research Archive

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• Nomeikaite, Laima; Shults, Lee Michael; Akin, Deniz; Hundstad, Dag; Olsen, Marcus Elias & Warenius, Mary Ann Skretteberg (2026). Eilerts salong: Skeiv i Agder – gjennom historien og i dag. doi: https:/www.uia.no/om-uia/fakultet/samfunnsvitenskap/arrangementer/eilerts-salong/skeiv-i-agder.html. Full text in Research Archive
• Nomeikaite, Laima; Shults, Lee Michael; Haaland, Hanne; Abdallah, Rasha & Beg, Mohammad Osman (2026). “A Fox under a Pink Moon” - panelsamtale. doi: https:/www.krscinematek.no/events/a-fox-under-a-pink-moon-panelsamtale/?fbclid=IwY2xjawQnuExleHRuA2FlbQIxMABzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeG34IlAsJxu3QXahaMqv2fGRsi2dHxAk8c3n7DVP5G6IhdaIOYaNohIudJRs_aem_zIThe9R0PI7RBZGIRD2eFw. Full text in Research Archive
• Dankertsen, Astri; Jegerstedt, Kari; Lotherington, Ann Therese; Lund, Rebecca Waters Boldsen; Myong, Lene & Shults, Lee Michael [Show all 7 contributors for this article] (2025). Trussel mot kjønns­forskningen er en trussel mot demokratiske verdier. Full text in Research Archive
• Shults, Lee Michael (2024). Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity and the Ethics of Participatory Ownership. Universitetet i Agder. Full text in Research Archive Show summary

  A lack of trust in governments and larger NGOs has increased the appeal of folk engagement in which “ordinary citizens” address global poverty and humanitarian crises by starting their own initiatives and volunteering abroad. This dissertation explores the tensions between the extraordinary motivations of ordinary people and the potential for the personal and direct nature of folk engagement to disrupt affective economies and the overall coordination of development and aid. To this end, philosophical perspectives on interrelated aspects of global solidarity are brought into conversation with the concerns of an international research community that engages Citizen Initiatives for Global Solidarity (CIGS). While this dissertation refers to this field of study as CIGS research, there is not agreement that CIGS offers an appropriate label for the forms of citizen aid that this research community studies. This project takes the ambiguity and definitional variety in this field as an opportunity to analyze empirical data, and engage several of the primary ethical concerns that have emerged within CIGS research over the past ten years. Through operationalizing global solidarity in a CIGS context, problematizing that operationalization, and developing a CIGSoriented ethics of participatory ownership, this dissertation offers conceptual clarity and develops new, empirically informed concepts. This ethics of participatory ownership has been developed in two theoretically oriented articles that critically engage influential theories of solidarity from the fields of moral and political philosophy, and three coauthored texts that offer examples of qualitative secondary analysis (QSA). Through interdisciplinary, collaborative re-analysis of the empirical data gathered by my co-authors, this dissertation offers rich and creative accounts of CIGS’ motivations and practices that challenge central assumptions in previous CIGS research and solidarity scholarship. Engaging the contexts of Lesvos, Norway, and Uganda, this analysis details the opportunities offered by global solidarity for projects of self-construction, the development of reflexivity, and the creation of collective, translocal senses of identity. These opportunities are considered alongside the risks of reproducing neocolonial and neoliberal patterns of affect that emphasize the agencies of outsiders with good intentions at the expense of those most affected by crisis and inequity.

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