Resistance as Transformation

Abstract

By and large, academic and non-academic discourses make two important assumptions about the nature of resistance. The first is that resistance is an act against something: against command, against exploitation, against imperialism, against power and so on. The second assumption, which is related to the former yet not equivalent to it, is that resistance operates from below, or is bottom-up rather than top-down. Even when it is accepted that the subject of resistance may be a person in a high place (see, for example, LaNuez and Jermier, 1994), resistance is seen as operating against the formal scheme of the organization or institution in question. What follows these two assumptions is the canonical opposition of domination and resistance. Resistance is thus viewed as counter-action, that is, as a type of action which reacts, in various guises, against a dominant arrangement or system. In most cases, this view is a prelude to an account of resistance as a political category. An additional coloration, which characterizes the critical take on power, is that the system of domination against which reaction takes place, is basically unequal, unjust and oppressive. Besides the mere domination-versus-resistance dichotomy, it is also often argued that resistance, not unlike domination, operates along a continuum of intensity, ranging from mere coping to task avoidance to pilfering and sabotage to active struggle.

Those who do not resign themselves, are the spice of earth, the colour of life, they condemn themselves to unhappiness, but they are our happiness.

— Elias Canetti, Aufzeichnungen