Solidarity is widely invoked as vital for overcoming present and future public health emergencies, as well as bridging global health disparities and inequities. However, despite its rhetorical prominence, appeals to solidarity have repeatedly failed to produce equitable outcomes in global health due to profound disagreements about the concept and how to institutionalize it in global health practice. Negotiations over the recently-adopted Pandemic Agreement revealed two key contrasting notions of solidarity: as redistributive and enforceable, grounded in demands for equity and historical redress; or voluntary, emphasising intellectual property protections and national discretion. We offer an account of solidarity that can function as a framework for integrating these rival views. Specifically, we theorise two understandings of solidarity that we have termed Deep and Responsive solidarity. While Deep solidarity refers to a normative principle of solidarity that is grounded on a profound understanding of being as fundamentally and intrinsically relational, Responsive solidarity is motivated as a response to crises. Our central intervention in this paper, drawing from the two accounts of solidarity, is to reorient solidarity from a crisis language towards a more foundational account of global health governance that can sustain justice both in ordinary times and in moments of rupture.

In times of crisis, such as pandemics or social injustice, people often talk about the importance of solidarity, standing together for a common cause. However, this term, while powerful, can sometimes leave people out, especially those who do not fit neatly into shared identities or experiences. Our paper examines how the concept of solidarity can unintentionally exclude individuals, obscure power disparities, or even be exploited by political or corporate interests. Rather than abandoning the concept, we suggest adding a new term: convergence. This word captures the idea of people coming together from different backgrounds to work towards shared goals, without needing to be the same or agree on everything. By combining solidarity with convergence, we can build more inclusive, transparent, and dynamic ways of working together in today’s complex world. This shift in language may help us navigate global challenges more fairly and collaboratively.

Solidarity has long been recognized as a powerful force for mobilizing collective action in public health, social justice, and political movements. Yet, despite its growing prominence, solidarity remains largely framed in anthropocentric terms, centered on relationships among humans. This framing is increasingly being questioned, leading to concepts such as more-than-human solidarity, ecological solidarity, and solidarity for the Anthropocene, which seek to expand solidarity across species boundaries. However, these theoretical developments risk remaining abstract unless grounded in lived realities.This article contributes to that effort through original qualitative empirical research with an Indigenous community in the western Himalayas of India. It examines how and why the community collectively abandoned animal slaughter, trans-Himalayan cattle trade, and hunting practices once central to their livelihoods and cultural life. Findings show that these changes were not driven by ecological crisis or conservation policy, but by cosmology, karmic belief, and moral responsibility. Solidarity with animals emerged through recognition of suffering and abandonment, sustained by interpersonal trust and relational obligations. Women played a central role in enforcing the ban through religious and spiritual arguments alongside legal, economic, and social pressures.The article argues that this case challenges dominant Western framings of solidarity as something humans extend to nonhuman others. Instead, it illustrates a relational ethic in which humans and nonhumans are understood as members of a shared moral world. Participants also acknowledged that these solidarities remain fragile and increasingly threatened by market-oriented values emphasizing individual economic gain over relational existence.