Mikael Baaz - Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice

Resistance Studies

Critical Engagements with Power and Social

Resistance appears in many different shapes and forms. It is about forming assemblies, engaging in collective and/or individual protests, involves delay tactics or direct oppositions, refusals to collaborate or the creation of alternatives and much more. It involves power relations, violence and reshaping our political, physical and social environments. Practices of resistance might be played out by individuals or groups in local, national or international spaces and embrace activities, which are to be seen as constructive, productive, emotional, invisible, grand, hindering or up-scaled. It might challenge, redirect, subvert, mitigate or evade mechanisms and manifestations of power; it might even produce new forms of power. It permeates all that we recognize as culture, material settings and the very conditions of human existence such as life and death. And, it seems to be one of the most important engines of social change. To cover all these aspects of resistance, the Resistance Studies series publishes original research on a wide range of issues, such as, subversive emotions, revolutionary struggles, political subjectivities, precarious resistance, the dynamics of dissident communities or belongings, and a vast array of productive resistance practices.

This series is published in association with the Resistance Studies Network, http://resistancestudies.org/.

Series Editors:

Mikael Baaz, Associate Professor of International Law and Associate Professor of Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Mona Lilja, Professor of Sociology and Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden and Karlstad University.

Sara Motta, Senior Lecturer of Politics, University of Newcastle, Australia.

Louiza Odysseos, Senior Lecturer of International Relations, University of Sussex.

Stellan Vinthagen, Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst, and University of Gothenburg Sweden.

Researching Resistance and Social Change

A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice

Mikael Baaz, Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen

Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd

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Copyright 2018 by Mikael Baaz, Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen

All rights reserved . No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: HB 978-1-7866-0116-2

PB 978-1-7866-0117-9

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Baaz, Mikael, 1966 author. | Lilia, Mona, author. | Vinthagen, Stellan, author.

Title: Researching resistance and social change : a critical approach to theory and practice / Mikael Baaz, Mona Lilia, and Stellan Vinthagen.

Description: London ; New York : Rowman & Littlefield International, [2017] | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2017031455 (print) | LCCN 2017042057 (ebook) | ISBN 9781786601186 (Electronic) | ISBN 9781786601162 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781786601179 (pbk. : alk. paper)

Subjects: LCSH: Government, Resistance to. | Resistance (Philosophy)Political aspects. | Social change.

Classification: LCC JC328.3 (ebook) | LCC JC328.3 .B33 2017 (print) | DDC 323/.044dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017031455

The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information SciencesPermanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992.

Printed in the United States of America

For

James C. Scott,

Sterling Professor of Political Science and Professor of Social Anthropology

Yale University

The three of us met during the 1990s, when we were PhD-students at the Peace and Development Research Institute of Gothenburg University (Padrigu) (today known as the School of Global Studies). We currently work within the same field, but also in sociology, law and political science. In addition, we have studied and/or work(ed) within several other established academic disciplines, including, economics, history, economic history, ethnography, international relations, global development studies, gender studies, and East and Southeast Asian studies. It is our sincere hope that this diverse background of ours is reflected in this book on resistance and resistance studies.

Between 2011 and 2016, we worked together within a research project, The Globalization of Resistance: Influences on Democracy Advocators in Civil Society in the South , which was financed by the Swedish Research Council. This grant contributed to the establishment of a research group, Researching Resistance in Social Transformation (RESIST) at the University of Gothenburg. The research group recently amalgamated with another group, Forum for Research on Civil Society and Social Movements (CSM) at the same University, and is known today as CSM-RESIST. All the original texts that this book draws upon were written during this period and within this vibrant environment. The book is a first attempt to, in a more systematized and structured fashion, bring together some of our main ideas on researching resistance.

Over and above everything, the book is about different entanglements within the field. Put somewhat differently, it is a book on the complex relations between power and resistance, but also between resistance and resistance as well as resistance and power.

Krradal, August, 2017
Mikael Baaz, Mona Lilja and Stellan Vinthagen

As indicated in the preface, this book is part of an undertaking very much in the making. Given this, the thoughts and ideas presented here are not final, but rather preliminary and tentative. Put somewhat differently, the ideas introduced in the following pages are nothing but partial statements that are derived from a developing academic field; they are the result from a summarizing and reflective pause on an intellectual journey

Many people have, directly and indirectly, consciously and unconsciously, contributed to the development of the ideas that are presented in this book. Among all these truly amazing individuals, a few stands out. Associate Professor Michael Schulz has not only contributed generously with valuable insights during the RESIST and CSM-RESIST years, but he has also served as the co-author for earlier versions of chapters 2 and 4 of this book. Several well-established scholars have served as mentors and sources of inspirations in particular professors James C. Scott (to whom we dedicate this book as a gesture of our deep appreciation), Kathy Ferguson and Brian Martin. Professor Mark Haugaard, Editor of the Journal of Political Power , has not only served as a great source of inspiration, but have also been instrumental in making it possible for publishing our research. We have also benefited tremendously from various insightful comments from different sources, including participants in various international conferences (for example, the annual conferences of the International Studies Association and the British International Studies Association) and national seminars (in particular the Resistance Studies Seminar, University of Gothenburg), a significant number of anonymous reviewers that have been appointed by the journals in which earlier versions of some of the chapters appear, as well as the anonymous reviewers appointed by Rowman and Littlefield International. For this we are tremendously grateful. In addition to this, we would like to thank Pauline Martin, who has worked as our copy-editor for many years. She has contributed a great deal to improve the language of our texts.