Ideology and Resistance

Abstract

There has been a long and intense debate within the academic literature regarding the nature and impact of ideology, both as a theoretical construct and as a heuristic device for understanding the dynamics of social change (Abercrombie, Hill and Turner 1980, 1990; Barrett 1991; Eagleton 1994; Laclau and Mouffe 1985; Melucci 1996; Therborn 1980; Thompson 1984, 1990; Van Dijk 1998; Zizek 1994). Ideology has been interpreted in various ways. In orthodox Marxism, it is defined in pejorative terms as a form of false consciousness, while within the Mannheimian tradition it is treated as a social scientific category (Barrett 1991). In this chapter, we adopt a broadly Gramscian (1971) understanding of ideology, which, while recognizing the embeddedness of ideology in praxis, also regards it both as the means by which the powerful establish their hegemony and as an instrument of social transformation and counter-hegemony. We concentrate on the role of ideology in realizing change, with particular reference to the ideologies emanating from egalitarian social movements. We focus in particular on how the theory and practice of affective equality can be a mobilizing narrative given its generative basis in the women’s movement and its wider appeal across other social movements.

We need to invent a new utopianism, rooted in contemporary social forces, for which — at the risk of seeming to encourage a return to antiquated political visions — it will be necessary to create new kinds of movement. … Critical reflective social movements are, in my opinion, the future. (Pierre Bourdieu, in Grass and Bourdieu 2002, p. 77)