Resistant Silences

Abstract

In her poem “Cartographies of Silence,” Adrienne Rich (1978) urges her readers to remember that silence “has a presence.” She writes that

It has a history a form

Do not confuse it

With any kind of absence (p. 17)

Like Rich, feminist and critical race theorists and activists have worked hard to document and challenge the many concrete ways that marginalized and oppressed groups have been forced to be silent. In this chapter, I argue that in addition to not confusing silence with absence, it is also important to be able to distinguish between different forms of silence. Since silence and force have been so closely linked in our histories, it is tempting to collapse the two and focus on silence, instead of its enforcement, as what must be overcome. In this essay, I distinguish enforced silences—often the ones that progressive theorists and activists have in mind—from three kinds of engaged and oppositional silences: silent refusal, silent witness, and deliberative silence. Far from marking a capitulation to power, these modes of silence can be important techniques or technologies of resistance. I argue that these forms of silent engagement can be important tools for political struggle, and pay particular attention to the ways that these modes of silence might be useful for those occupying positions of hegemonic power, privilege, and dominance to challenge or reject such positions.