Decolonising solidarity in higher education: navigating barriers and enablers in advocacy with people from displaced backgrounds

In a world marked by escalating displacement and anti-migrant sentiment, scholars and practitioners face significant challenges in cultivating genuine solidarity with refugees and displaced individuals. This article critically examines the complexities of creating decolonising solidarity within higher education institutions (HEIs), drawing on our collective experiences of advocacy with people with lived experience of forced migration in Scotland, Australia, England and Aotearoa New Zealand. Using data from online semi-structured interviews conducted in 2020, we reflect on how individuals and collectives navigate, resist and transform institutional and structural constraints that often reinforce colonial hierarchies. Through the lens of structural decolonisation, we examine how our collectives attempt to facilitate solidarity with refugees in a range of ways ‘within/against’ and beyond institutional and structural constraints. Barriers include competition for resources and a focus on individual success; enablers include grassroots organising, cross-institutional alliances and the solidarity of like-minded academic colleagues. Extending a framework for enacting decolonising solidarity, we argue that its aim is not merely to provoke discomfort but to cultivate trust, mutual recognition and collective liberation. These affective dimensions – joy, humour and the strengthening of relationships – enhance its transformative potential within HEIs despite systemic challenges.