DEVIANCE AS RESISTANCE: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics

Abstract

This paper explores the possibility of constructing a field of investigation based in African American Studies and borrowing from queer theory and Black feminist analysis that is centered around the experiences of those who stand on the (out)side of state-sanctioned, normalized, White, middle-and upper-class, male heterosexuality. This would entail a paradigmatic shift in how scholars of Black politics and more broadly African American Studies think and write about those most vulnerable in Black communities-those thought to be morally wanting by both dominant society and other indigenous group members. Using a theoretical framework for studying Black politics that highlights the construction and malleability of categories as well as the work of processes of normalization found in queer theory in tandem with the detailed understanding of power, in particular as it is structured around and through axes such as race, gender, and class found in African American Studies, we might gain new insights into the everyday politics of those at the bottom in Black communities.Despite the feelings of some in Black communities that we have been shamed by the immoral behavior of a small subset of community members, those some would label the underclass, scholars must take up the charge to highlight and detail the agency of those on the outside, those who through their acts of nonconformity choose outsider status, at least temporarily. An intentional deviance given limited agency and constrained choices sits at the center for this field of research. These individuals are not fully or completely defining themselves as outsiders nor are they satisfied with their outsider status, but they are also not willing to adapt completely, or to conform. The cumulative impact of such choices might be the creation of spaces or counter publics, where not only oppositional ideas and discourse happen, but lived opposition, or at least autonomy, is chosen daily. Through the repetition of deviant practices by multiple individuals, new identities, communities, and politics might emerge where seemingly deviant, unconnected behavior can be transformed into conscious acts of resistance that serve as the basis for a mobilized politics of deviance.

Talanoa as empathic apprenticeship

“…Informal talanoa provides opportunities in which more intimate sharing may take place under the right conditions (see Farrelly, 2009Farrelly, , 2010. In this process, 'conscientizing' or advancing critical consciousness (Freire, 1968), creativity, passive resistance (Scott, 1985;Cohen, 2004), and negotiation of new skills, knowledge and values, can be played out without the restrictions of avoidance or tabu relationships, and free from fear of retribution (Farrelly, 2009(Farrelly, , 2010. This paper progresses this thinking to consider how a researcher or practitioner may consciously reflect on the intersubjective empathy inherent in talanoa and work collaboratively towards a social justice outcome in development practice and policy.…”

Campaigning for cooperatives as resistance to neoliberal capitalism

“…This campaign is not a politics of deviance (Cohen 2004), not a sidestepping of the dominant values of the discourse -rather, it is a way to construct co-ops as not so deviant after all, in accordance with Whyman's (2012) attempt to include co-ops in mainstream economic history. Instead of critical resistance to neoliberalism, for example by co-opting domination's own strategy to resist emancipatory Wiksell, K. 2017.…”

“…Cohen (2004) 10 dominant discourse is thus a form of critical resistance (Cacho 2012, Hoy 2004). In conclusion, critical resistance concerns emancipatory resistance to domination that resists being co-opted by the power of domination and resists the power's productive force of subjectification, without reproducing the dominant discourses of power.…”

(Re)Presenting Shug Avery and Afrekete: The Search for a Black, Queer, and Feminist Pleasure Praxis

“…27 Reimaging sociopolitical deviancy, and building upon this theoretical and ideological invention that Harris and Morgan propose, Cathy Cohen in her essay, "Deviancy as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics," argues that "individuals with little power in society engage in counter normative behaviors," resulting from their limited agency, and consequently create "a new radical politics of deviance." 28 Cohen defines a politics of deviance as a counternarrative praxis of the self. This counternarrative challenges "the presiding normative order with regard to family, sex, and desire," inevitably engendering "new or counter normative frameworks by which to judge behavior."…”