7: Resistance and its discontents Flashcards
This lecture:
Scott argues that the concept of ‘hegemony’ is inadequate and that the concept of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ helps us theorise how dominated people do actually resist, if we are prepared to take a closer look
Some challenges to think about:
► Does the notion of ‘hegemony’ accurately account for the relationship between dominant and subordinate groups?
► Does it ignore the possibility of meaningful resistance (are all attempts at resistance futile because they have to accept the dominant group’s ‘terms of the debate’?)
► Does it mistakenly accept the tendency of subordinate groups to reproduce the dominant discourse (the ‘public transcript’) at face value?
- They ask things like does hegemony actually tell us something about how the world really works? Is it a useful concept?
- Does it not lead us to miss out on various things, such as ways people resist various domination, they do not go along with it.
- Is it not naïve because it underestimates subordinate people. It thinks they are taken in by the dominant like to tell them, but its naïve in terms of what those people actually think and how they actually act.
James C. Scott
e. g.
1985. Weapons of the weak: everyday forms of peasant resistance.
1990. Domination and the arts of resistance: hidden transcripts.
- Theory of everyday forms of resistance
- A lot of work has been done in this particular field
- Often done with peasants – because Scott’s own work initially, where he developed this theory of everyday forms of resistance, used peasants, mainly in Malaysia
weapons of the weak
= everyday forms of resistance
Scott argues that the concept of hegemony is inadequate and that the concept of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ helps us theorise how dominated people do actually resist. He studies very poor peasants in a village in Malaysia. Scott didn’t find any uprising, let alone a revolution. (This is where he flips the argument). He says its not because they were not rising up in a visible way (a way we can recognize as a revolt) – but this doesn’t mean they were not resisting. He says they are permanently in forms of struggle, but in small struggles, in everyday ways of resistance.
He says that land owner’s tried to extend the reach of their domination and control by more land, to become richer etc. The peasants tried to avoid it as much as possible.
He then focuses on what he calls ‘everyday forms of resistance’ in which he includes lots of examples of how these people go into little practices e.g. dragging feet walking to work, gossiping, pretending to obey orders and not doing them or fully, telling rude jokes about those in charge of them, little thefts etc. All these acts share certain characteristics: they are anonymous are all about avoiding confrontation, may represent forms of individual self-help and are part of an on-going process. All of them hide behind a pretence: they pretend they are acting right to authority, but really they are resisting. This is because they find themselves in a position of extreme inequality, where they are extremely dominated, that they don’t have room for manoeuvre. They know that if they rise up in rebellion they will get crushed because they are weak. He argues thus these everyday forms of resistance do in fact make shambles on domination – over time these little acts chip away at domination to have an affect. It is a common form of consciousness among these people.
Hegemony would say that the poor peasants are too a degree accepting the worldview of the dominant. Scott’s view is directly against this view. The peasants actually know too much and this is why they don’t revolt. Not because they don’t know enough.
- He thinks hegemony theory has got it wrong. He think it relies to much on the story of the dominant. He therefore says that these authors only have access to the official versions of reality, and the official ones are written by the powerful.
- Another problem - these people are waiting for a revolution, an uprising. A way in which people resist. Scott says that they see that not much of that happens, and thus they say they do not resist at all. SCOTT argues that hegemony theories don’t look close enough, don’t actually look at what’s going on. And secondly, they look for the wrong things. They are waiting for a rebellion, they should look at other forms of resistance, such as the little acts he says. He this argues that when we do look at these little things, and you put them together, he argues that the subordinate, the poor peasant, actually do not believe in the story that the dominant tell themselves. They do not buy into the dominant ideology. They are aware of their exploitation.
- So, they have not accepted the dominant world view. In fact, they don’t confront it directly. They seem to show respect, they don’t disrespect the dominant ideology. They seem to agree with it. But in fact, they have they have their own common sense, that is separate, invisible, which they don’t show to the dominant. When they act as if they are going along with it, they are calculating it, they know exactly what they are doing and are doing this for strategic reasons. They don’t rebel because they know that they will be brutally oppressed if they do so. So they make calculation to oppress in those little ways.
- So, hegemony = assumes people take domination as their own common sense. They know too little to resist. Reason why they don’t resist, is because they know too little. They don’t understand they’re being oppressed.
- Scott says this is wrong, because they know full well that if they revolt that they would be crushed. They know too much and this is why they don’t revolt. Not because they don’t know enough.
Public transcripts
The public transcript is the official story that the rules and dominant tell about themselves – the way the world works from the eyes of the dominant.
Scott shows that his peasants in Malaysia pretended to go along with their public transcripts, but they actually had their own transcript (the hidden transcript)
Hidden transcripts
The hidden transcript is hidden from the site of the dominant. The landlord doesn’t know about this. This happens in the evening/stables when supervisors arents around, in certain places, where they badmouth. In hidden places.
Scott makes a link between ACTS (weapons of the weak) and HIDDEN IDEOLOGY. He needs a criteria in which acts qualify as resistance. If they are linked to hidden transcript then they are resistance.
He says that if these people are engaging in these little acts over a long time and these acts are embedded in a story of how the world should betc wtc, then that may lead overtime to an outburst. To something that not any more is a weapon of the weak, but an open form of resistance.
Some problems with the theory of everyday forms of resistance:
1) It could be said that Scott gets hegemony theory WRONG. He argues this whole thing against hegemony, but in fact it’s a straw line argument. In fact, he presents theory in ways that are not in line with what we saw last week. He overemphasises the idea of consent, of people agreeing, of belief and ideology.
• Last week text by Roseberry: It’s a lot of hegemony theory is not about belief or consent, it’s about what they do, about practices, about everyday practical frameworks of common sense. It was about water and irrigation, and how they did things. The Twana didn’t just accept words from God from the missionaries, in fact they started acting in certain ways which were in line with the ideology of the Brisish empire and the capitalist world system etc.
• Scott presents hegemony theory as if its all about consent and ideology, whereas its much more about practice as well and thus argument becomes weaker, if you take into account the way people use the term hegemony.
2) Scott warns in text of ‘romanticising’ the weapons of the weak. But this is happening in his own text. He seems to replace one problematic idea, that people aer buying into the dominant ideology, with another equally probalamatic idea, which says that the hidden transcript is ‘the real truth’. He says that story that oppressed people tell about social reality is actually true compared to the public transcript htat is a lie. That the hidden transcript is a full blown critique of social reality. Victims have a deep and complex understanding of oppression of oppression and inequality, in which themselves are the victims.
• Victims know they are oppressed, and the only reason why this isn’t being expressed is because of fear. It presents them as being as very intelligent and cunning, strategic, able to have all these things and to balance them and to make right decision for themselves. One problem with this approach is that it ignores that the hidden transcript may also be ‘contaminated’ but the public transcript. They are not completely separate from each other. Poor people may to a certain degree buy into the public transcript, and actually believe in it, rather than pretend to agree with it. They do to an extent themselves use that public transcript to explain their own situation, but also to criticise other people.
3) Even though it’s about acts, it ends up maybe underestimating practice. Sometimes people just do things because the just do them… and they don’t have any transcript underlying them. They just do it naturally. We shouldn’t always assume that there is some sort of rational process going on in which people have some sort of ideology in their head. Other people – its seeing what’s going on that make them go out on treat and protest. The act of taking part in these things can turn people in certain directions. Its not always based on some pre-existing beliefs and then act them out in a revolt.
5) (key point) Clear tendency to homogenise – to think of oppressed people as one group ‘the oppressed’ ‘the poor’ ‘the peasants’. This is a binary view. People with power vs people without power. Scott’s view is sometimes maybe true, but often its very not true. Amongst people that are oppressed, there are also many conflicts. Its poor people and unemployed people, people who have feel they have lost out, who are often the ones to point the finger at other poor people. E.g. xenophobia. Those that feel they are the victims of a current system, who then blame other people who are also victims of a current system. Clearly not homogenous. There are many struggles and disagreement between then – so they may not share transcripts – there may be many different transcripts.
6) Political point made by people who work on hegemony.
• A lot of them have an investment in their work, they are interested in understanding theoretically what the situation is , but also they are genuinely interested in trying to change these things, trying to help people and do something about it.
• One of the criticisms that has been made of Scott’s theory of everyday forms of resistent, e.g. by people working in Latin America, is that these forms of resistance that Scott celebrates and sees as important (seeds of revolution), these critics say that instead of seeing them as positive, we have to be aware or careful, because sometimes they may stop real resistance from happening. They may help the status quo instead of further change.
• Everyday acts of resistance may sometimes be the seeds of revolt, but sometime may be like a way to let of steam. As long as people can tell a dirty joke about boss, complain or steal, - it may just be a way in which they actually overtly resist. They can always let of some steam etc. There are reasons to believe that this is quite often the case. TNC’s have accounting system that allows for low paid workers to steal a little bit and be less productive, because it’s better for them that workers to let of little bits of steam, rather than pay for a massive revolt. Keeping them on low pay but letting them do little things that mean the let off steam. They think this is a better strategy of domination than rather trying to exclude all these little forms of ‘letting of steam’. We should look at these issues, and should start with the idea that these are revolt.
