Conceptualizing Resistance

Abstract

Recently, there has been a rapid proliferation of scholarship on resistance but little consensus on its definition. In this paper, we review and synthesize the diverse literatures that invoke the concept of resistance. This review illuminates both core elements common to most uses of the concept and two central dimensions on which these uses vary: the questions of whether resistance must be recognized by others and whether it must be intentional. We use these two dimensions to develop a typology of resistance, thereby clarifying both the meaning and sociological utility of this concept.Resistance is a fashionable topic. In sociology, as in many other disciplines, attention has recently expanded from issues of social control and social structure to issues of agency. As a result, we are now experiencing a flood of research and theory which purports to speak to the issue of resistance. This new attention spans many subdisciplines in sociology. At the 2001 annual meeting of the American Sociological Association, for example, papers on resistance were presented in sessions on social movements, gender, sport, technology, and political sociology, among others. This is true across disciplines as well; resistance has received increasing attention in disciplines such as anthropology, cultural studies, geography, political science, and women's studies.Although this rapid proliferation of scholarship on resistance is both exciting and productive, different authors who use the language of resistance 1 A version of this paper was presented at the 2002 annual meeting of the Pacific Sociological Association.

How resistance encourages resistance: theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’

“…The dichotomizing of resisters and dominators in fact ignores that there are different systems of hierarchy that interact. Therefore, individuals can be simultaneously powerful and powerless within parallel systems (Hollander and Einwohner 2004). To conclude, there is a lot to gain if power and resistance are understood as interconnected and entangled.…”

Pesantren’s Resistance Against Cultural Globalization

“…Hollander and Rachel L. Einwohner (2004) Power, in the context of this study, is globalization embodied in the phenomenon of Western discourse domination (Westernization/Americanization). Roger Bastide defines cultural globalization as an endeavor not to let the vital values inherited from…ancestors Meanwhile, another dimension of resistance is intention.…”

Global governance of labour migration: From ‘management’ of migration to an integrated rights-based approach

“…In this sense, the case of the global migrant rights movement falls into the category of 'overt' resistance (as per the typology developed by Hollander and Einwohner 2004)-that is, a category of resistance that involves visible behaviour easily recognisable by targets and observers and, thus, includes collective acts such as mobilisation by, or into, social movements. However, as social movement literature has predominantly concerned itself with grassroots mobilisation, constructivist international relations scholarship has to be brought in as it highlights the socially constructed nature of international relations (in contrast with pure materialism) and, thus, opens up an avenue for the role of ideas in international advocacy.…”