This article explores the meaning of “resistance” and suggests a new path for “resistance studies,” which is an emerging and interdisciplinary field of the social sciences that is still relatively fragmented and heterogeneous. Resistance has often been connected with antisocial attitudes, destructiveness, reactionary or revolutionary ideologies, unusual and sudden explosions of violence, and emotional outbursts. However, we wish to add to this conceptualization by arguing that resistance also has the potential to be productive, plural and fluid, and integrated into everyday social life. The first major part of the article is devoted to discuss existing understandings of resistance with the aim of seeking to capture distinctive features and boundaries of this social phenomenon. Among other things, we will explore resistance in relation to other key concepts and related research fields. We then, in the article’s second major part, propose a number of analytical categories and possible entrances aiming at inspire more in-depth studies of resistance.
An increasing body of literature focuses on negotiations of transitional justice, but not much has been written so far regarding contestations over its practices and the refusal of states and individuals to participate. Given the remaining legalistic dominance, this is particularly true regarding the field of international criminal law. Very little, if any, work in international criminal law engages with the topic of “resistance.” Departing from this gap in research, focusing on Cambodia and the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC), the objective of this article is to introduce, discuss, and analyze the “strategy of rupture”—as developed by the late French lawyer Jacques Vergès—and the ways in which this legal defense has been applied in practice at the ECCC in order to resist not only the Tribunal per se, but also the entire Cambodian transitional justice process and, by extension, the post–Cold War global liberal project.
This article analyzes the gap between globally promoted definitions of liberal democracy and the different ways in which the concept is interpreted by individual politicians and civil society representatives in Cambodia. By taking as our point of departure the gap between "hegemonic" views of democracy and locally lived democracy experiences and strategies, we argue that one of the basic concepts of liberal democracy-the concept of the "politics of ideas"-does not easily match local facets of democracy. Followers of liberal democracy give priority to the representation of ideas and ideologies over the question of who represents them. This priority, however, seems to correspond poorly to the situation in present-day Cambodia. Based on extensive field material, the article demonstrates how Cambodian interpretations of the Western understanding of "liberal democracy" try to bridge the gap between the praxis of the "politics of ideas" and the "politics of presence."
This article will examine irrationality in relation to the concept of resistance. Is there such a thing as an irrational resistance? While one tendency has been to irrationalise the 'other' and their resistance in order to construct a subaltern identity position, within the social sciences, an opposing tendency can also be identified; there is a trend to try to rationalise what seems to be people's irrational behaviours. In this article, however, we will take a different stance by arguing that resistance is generally both irrational and rational depending on its relation to power.
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