Introduction to special issue ‘The discreet mobilisations of working-class and subaltern groups’

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Notes

1 These authors qualify this as ‘smart’ repression, avoiding the traditional curvilinear effect of repression, which, when too coercive or violent, can spur mobilisation in reaction.

2 In Gluckman’s view, symbolic revolts against authorities are based on the ‘acceptance of the established order as just and well-founded, or even sacred’, and therefore contribute to the reproduction of the ruling political and social order.

3 ‘I mean to suggest that … infrapolitics … provides much of the cultural and structural underpinning of the more visible political action on which our attention has generally been focused’ (Scott, 1990, p. 184).