Book review: Anna Johansson and Stellan Vinthagen,Conceptualizing ‘Everyday Resistance’: A Transdisciplinary Approach

This book is a theoretical guide to understand a lesser engaged concept, ‘everyday resistance’, particularly in terms of how the everydayness of resistance by different marginalised identities questions multiple structures of power. Everyday life as an important sociological concept to understand the complex social processes embedded in seemingly mundane activities is examined by the authors through an analytical-theoretical approach to understand the complexities of relationships between power and everyday resistance. As an important constituent of everyday life, this was previously systematically debated by de Certeau (1984) and Scott (1985) through concepts like ‘infrapolitics’, ‘off-Kilter resistance’ and ‘hidden transcripts’. Everyday resistance studies concern issues of autonomy, exploring how people liberate themselves from what might undermine their own power and agency.

The authors critique the anti-Foucauldian position of de Certeau (1984), arguing that the ‘popular tactics’ of everyday resistance are also ‘entangled’ with the creative use of a ‘network of social discipline’ (p. 43). Foucault’s emphasis on ‘antidiscipline’ had made him develop the concept of ‘popular tactics’ through which everyday resistance unfolds (p. 42). The agents of resistance are inevitably entangled in this network of social disciplines. Furthermore, de Certeau emphasised how people exhibit their resistance, while missing out on what the intention of their resistance might be (p. 47).

According to the authors, everyday resistance may also not always be placed within a class-struggle framework (p. 33–4). While opposition to power cannot be ignored in everyday resistance and is unavoidable, intersectional and decentred, there can be multiple centres of this power. The moment someone tries to resist or defy the existing structures of power, there are likely to be social and political sanctions in the form of different stigmatic signs (p. 64).

The authors argue that even small, scattered resistance is questioning existing power structures, so there is a need to meaningfully engage with this, rather than seeking to reduce it merely to an isolated act or event. Discussing the possible repertoire of everyday resistance, they argue that it is hidden and disguised, yet important to understand a culture or subculture (p. 93). Located in a pattern of social action, everyday resistance is always contextual, involves creative tactics and has its own dynamics and multiple forms. The authors also problematise the current trend of understanding the world as a ‘resistance/power couplet’ (p. 73). Everyday resistance may not always be oppositional practice to the dominant power, but as an interactive process it is inevitably situated in multiple power relations at the same time, which can be institutional power, disciplinary power or biopower (p. 174).

The authors also explore everyday resistance as counter-practice, thereby challenging the ‘configuration of power’ (p. 82). In this context, they emphasise Gandhian non-violence, practised against colonisation through concepts like collective villages, constructive programmes and self-discipline (p. 99), as a repertoire of everyday resistance, reflected in his ideas of liberation and self-empowerment (p. 100). The other repertoire discussed by the authors is how through queering repertoires of everyday resistance, the LGBTIQ movement has practised ‘reverse discourse articulation’ (p. 101). This involves naming and shaming homophobic discourse, often by using slang, challenging the power structure that produces a hegemonic language and discourse (p. 102). This particular act of everyday resistance further involves the reinterpretation and celebration of the term ‘queer’. Involving the creation of new vocabulary to celebrate one’s identity, this produces ‘contentious repertoires’ as a queer subculture (p. 103).

The authors’ emphasis on everyday resistance in terms of a dynamic relationship with power structures remains important to understand the concept of resistance per se, beyond existing historical frameworks. Their theoretical approach helps to elucidate how structure and agency have worked in different contexts to shape historical social change. The book develops a transdisciplinary approach of unravelling different repertoires of resistance by dissolving any disciplinary neatness to understand how resistance is scattered in its complex everydayness.

The theoretical framework of everyday resistance can be re-thought to explain the South Asian experiences of caste as well. The plurality of everyday resistance by Dalits has created an increasingly prominent counter-culture responding to the existing dominant Brahmanical agency, defying its power. The book’s conceptualisation of power becomes helpful in expanding caste discussions in the context of South Asia, as a de-centred approach to power within subaltern discourse is still largely missing.

Overall, this book is a significant and useful study, exploring how everyday resistance manifests in multiple ways that can be explored through quite different repertoires and tactics of everyday life-experiences, also in different historical periods (Banerjee-Dube, 2008). It engages in an interdisciplinary discussion that connects well to existing writing.