Theorising Resistance Formations: Reverse Discourses, Spatial Resistance and Networked Dissent

ABSTRACT

By merging the concepts of “formations” and “resistance”, this paper presents a conceptual map of how to “read” resistance movements, which are composed of individual resistance and collective action. I suggest that reverse discourse could be interpreted as one specific resistance formation, by denoting how subjects (re)articulate and re-present themselves and the figure they are expected to assume; it is a negotiation of defined and delimited identities positions. The framing of reverse discourse as a particular resistance formation, with its specific deposits, makes sense when contrasting it with other movements of resistance. By comparing different formations of resistance – such as reverse discourse, spatial resistance or networked dissent – this paper displays how and why specific mobilisations unfold; both particular and more universal features come to light when contrasting the topographies of different resistance formations.

KEYWORDS:

• Resistance formations
• reverse discourse
• spatial resistance or networked dissent

Introduction

This special issue discusses resistance in the form of reverse discourse, which is a kind of resistance that engenders a “transformation of values” (Bleiker 2000, 276). In this paper, I suggest that reverse discourse can be seen as a specific formation of resistance. Subjects, who are expected to adhere to the same subaltern subject position, come together to negotiate this subject position, thereby creating a “we”. Reverse discourse, then, composes a kind of constructive resistance; while subject positions have new meaning attached to them, communities of belonging are produced in the same movement. The framing of this kind of reverse discourse – as a specific resistance formation, with its specific deposits – makes sense when contrasting it with other movements of resistance. By comparing different “formations of resistance”, I argue that we come to understand how and why the dissent is pursued; both particular and more universal features come to light when relating different resistance formations to each other.

By suggesting the framing of resistance formations, this paper builds on, but also moves beyond, a renowned scholarship on subversive movements. Resistance is currently and primarily discussed within the paradigm of collective mobilisations that are discussed within the widespread fields of “contentious politics”, social movement studies or within the emerging field of “nonviolent action” studies or studies of “civil resistance” (Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Sharp 1973; Vinthagen 2015). While the widely held field of social movement studies has sustained a focus on the collective (identity, framing, resource mobilisation or strategy), there has been a relative silence about individualised forms of resistance within this paradigm (see, e.g. Ackerman and Kruegler 1994; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Svensson and Lindgren 2011; Lilja 2021). In addition, “contentious politics” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001), which may be the most ambitious and recognised attempt to create a unified framework in regard to political struggles, excludes acts by small groups or individuals from what the scholars of this perspective count as “events” – individuals only make sense within “contentious politics” when they are organised within collectives either as participants, leaders or organisers in collectively organised events (Lilja 2022; Baaz et al. 2021). This strand explicitly limits the scope of contention to forms that display “public, collective interaction” (McAdam, Tarrow, and Tilly 2001, 4). There are of course occasional exceptions to the above pattern; still, individual forms of resistance in these cases seem to matter primarily as indicators, beginnings or evolving processes of collective action (see, e.g. Castells 1997; Melucci 1996; Lilja 2021).

The hegemonic status of the paradigm of collective mobilisations for the study of resistance has resulted in a curious absence of other forms or resistance. This has been acknowledged by the “local turn” in peacebuilding (Duffield 2001; Hughes, Öjendal, and Schierenbeck 2015; Mac Ginty 2013; Richmond and Mac Ginty 2014; Richmond 2010, 2011) as well as by the more recently established field of “resistance studies” (see, e.g. Koefoed 2017; Sørensen 2016; Sørensen and Wiksell 2019; Wiksell 2020; Murru and Polese 2020; Hoy 2004; Amoore 2005; Bayat 2000; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Courpasson and Vallas 2016; Duncombe 2002; Hollander and Einwohner 2004; Scott 1990; Baaz, Lilja, and Vinthagen 2017; Lilja and Vinthagen 2014, 2018; Lilja and Baaz 2021). The latter scholarship has been preoccupied with a number of specific issues, among other things, this strand of research has unsettled the previous focus on collective resistance by acknowledging the forces of the “everyday” and often hidden resistance (Johansson and Vinthagen 2019; Lilja 2021; Iñiguez de Heredia 2018; Odysseos, Death, and Malmvig 2016; Wiksell 2021) as well as unpacked the intricate relationship between power and resistance (Maiguashca 2003; Coleman and Tucker 2015; Johansson and Vinthagen 2019; Lilja and Vinthagen 2014). Over and above this, a smaller strand of scholars has engaged with rethinking resistance in terms of negotiating meaning-making practices (see, e.g. Bleiker 2000; Lilja 2021; Wiksell 2021; Jackson 2018).

It is in this scholarly context, that this paper attempts to form a bridge between fields in order to illuminate different formations of resistance, which contain collective actions and dispersed and individual resistance or an in-between combination. With the advent of the new century, and resistance campaigns such as the #MeToo movement, we need to rethink resistance movements beyond the organised. This paper does this by framing resistance formations; the acting out of reverse discourses is put forward in relation to two other “formations” of resistance – spatial resistance and networked dissent. I have selected these cases because of their contemporary significance, and they have been sculpted from field studies in Cambodia, Sweden and Palestine.

Among others, the #MeToo movement indicates the importance of “networked resistance” (Brunner and Partlow-Lefevre 2020; Hsu 2019; Trott 2020; Lilja and Johansson 2018; cf. Dingo 2012; Grewal 1999, 2005). The #MeToo campaign was an international movement against sexual harassment, which swept virally across the world in 2017. This resistance can be described as a form that circulates and creates a network of mobile points of resistance. It is resistance that is transmitted in a “net-like” mode and involves signs, and the recognition of signs, as well as different emotions. This kind of resistance mobilises around issues and is played out during shorter time periods, although the resistance might become very intense as well as being grounded in narratives of dissent that are already established.

This resistance formation stands in stark contrast with other mobilisations of resistance that I have encountered; for example, in the West Bank and Gaza. Resistance in these locations has developed over a longer period of time and in bounded spaces with great social connectivity. This “spatial” resistance, in contrary to the “networked resistance” of the #MeToo movement, is developed in worlds within worlds; here the very space comes to matter (cf. Foucault 1967). While, in some senses, the space of the resistance mirrors the outside, the resistance formations that emerge in these settings also distinguish themselves from, and upset, that which is outside. In this paper, I discuss this spatial resistance through interview material that was collected in the occupied Palestinian territories.

I would like to suggest that spatial resistance, networked dissent and reverse discourses are quite different resistance formations. This, therefore, offers us insights into the variety of compositions of different mobilisations. By placing these three resistance formations in relation to each other, I suggest a conceptual framework of analysis of resistance formations, which can be used to “read” different resistance movements.

This paper is organised as follows: first of all, I take a short detour over the field of resistance studies to position the paper in relation to previous research. Next, the data collected and some methodological considerations of the paper are briefly discussed. Among other things, the analysis builds on field studies that were carried out in Sweden, Cambodia and Palestine. Thereafter, I outline the basic theoretical scaffolding of the paper. In order to pursue my research task, I partly take inspiration from research on resistance (Ambjörnsson 2019; Lilja and Vinthagen 2014, 2018; Koefoed 2017; Sørensen 2016; Sørensen and Wiksell 2019; Wiksell 2020; Johansson and Vinthagen 2019) and partly from the research on formations (Richmond 2013; Aning et al. 2018). After a brief discussion on my theoretical point of departure, I map different “resistance formations” that have their own specific emancipatory strategies – spatial resistance, networked dissent and reverse discourses. These sketches allow me to further elaborate a conceptual framework for analysing formations of resistance. This is done in the last section of the paper.

Positioning the findings

This paper moves beyond the scope of collective mobilisations and builds on previous research within resistance studies.

The popular field of social movement studies has maintained a focus on collective actions, often by limiting studies to “movement organisations”, public “episodes” and “campaigns” of various kinds (Baaz et al. 2021; Lilja, Baaz, Schulz, and Vinthagen 2017; Lilja and Baaz 2021; Lilja 2022). Overall, social movement theory has elaborated processes, preconditions for political actions, political ends, the circulation of political perspectives, the production of new norms, conducts and diffusion (Yates 2015). Still, this strand does not include more subtle, individual or everyday forms of resistance. Moreover, “contentious politics”, which is one of the most ambitious and recognised attempts to create a unified framework between fields of political struggles, does not mention “everyday resistance” and it also excludes acts by small groups of individuals (see, e.g. McAdam, Tarrow and Tilly 2001). The focus on the collective, rather than individual expressions of resistance, becomes apparent in the terminology of the social movement scholarship; the concept of “collective action” is often used by scholars as an alternative concept to social movements (Lilja 2022; Baaz et al. 2021).

The curious absence of more individual expressions of resistance in most studies on collective mobilisations makes the field rather limited. Since every field needs to focus on certain issues, it is not necessarily a problem in itself. However, the scholarship is not properly equipped to illuminate and capture formations of resistance that include a rich variation of both “individual” and “collectively organised” forms of dissent. I suggest that this side-stepping of more dispersed forms of resistance within studies on collective actions opens up a gap for this paper to fill (Lilja and Vinthagen 2018; Baaz et al. 2021).

Similarly, the recently established field of resistance studies has been preoccupied with a number of specific issues, while failing to embrace a broader take on resistance mobilisations. One topic that is under interrogation has been the relationship between power and resistance (Lilja and Vinthagen 2014; Scott 1989, 1990; Bayat 2000; Johansson and Vinthagen 2019). Bice Maiguashca (2003), among others, has argued that the relationship between the two forms of politics – the politics of governance and the politics of resistance – cannot be underscored enough. Coleman and Tucker (2015) further elaborate on this theme by arguing that we will, without learning more fully from contextual factors, such as local discourses and subjectivities, fail to understand how resistance is played out.

Another line of reasoning embrace hidden or less dramatical forms of agency. Different tenets of resistance theorists – among them, Louiza Odysseos, Carl Death and Helle Malmvig (2016, 151) – have framed resistance in international relations (IR), by drawing on Foucault’s notion of “counter-conduct”, which “inventively modify, resist or escape the ways in which we are governed”. Their research has demonstrated types of resistance that are generally not “manifested in expressly political registers” (Odysseos, Death, and Malmvig 2016, 151).

Less glaring forms of resistance have also been elaborated within peace and conflict studies. Building on the insights from scholars such as Michel de Certeau and James Scott, resistance has primarily been illuminated as a reaction against, what is being considered to be, problematic peace interventions. Probing local, hidden or everyday agency has resulted in more elaborated studies of peace-building and thus provides some avenues through which we can begin to understand processes of reconciliation (see, e.g. Richmond 2009; Mac Ginty 2013).

Over and above this, some IR scholars, for example, Roland Bleiker (2000), have pinpointed practices of dissent that work in discursive ways and negotiate norms and values. Researchers who adopt this approach sometimes draw on the many specialist fields that, at least tangentially, engage with resistance studies: gender studies and feminism, queer studies, critical race studies, sociology, postcolonial and decolonial studies, and so on. These tenets of resistance theorists emphasise resistance that is constructive of new world views, subjectivities and truths, by coining concepts such as “subversive knowledge”, “counter-history” or “knowledges otherwise” (Foucault 1990; Grosfoguel 2002, 2013; Mignolo 2009; Lilja 2021; Bleiker 2000).

Thus, although resistance studies have contributed to social science by providing several insights regarding different forms of resistance as well as the crossroads between power and resistance, it has had a rather limited focus so far. It is to this field of resistance studies that this paper now turns, by raising the question of how different practices of resistance, as presented by resistance studies, are patterned; or in other words, how they, together, compose different formations of resistance.

Method

To carve out different “types” of resistance formations, I have alternated between the already established scholarship on “resistance” and “formations”, as well as data from different fieldworks in Cambodia, Sweden and Palestine. This approach can be described as a dialectical one; theory and the empirical material are used in a close and continuously ongoing dialogue, where the empirical material informs the theoretical development, and the theory enlightens the empirical material.

In my encounters with different theoretical accounts and the narratives of my respondents (for my take on ethnographical research, see, Reed-Danahay 1993), I have constructed three “types” of resistance formations. These, I argue, are highly relevant since they have been historically important but are still prevalent in an analysis of the contemporary situation. While the “Négritude” movement, which developed in the 1930s and onwards, can be understood through the concept of reverse discourse, this strategy is still employed by, among others, women politicians in Cambodia. On the other hand, more loose networks, which are “activated” around different issues, will probably grow in importance as resistance is increasingly intimately bound, and interwoven, with communication networks that are facilitated by the internet and informed by possibilities of wireless communication. Indeed, I agree with Castells (2012) that new forms of resistance have entered and will enter the scene in a situation when technology contributes to innovative forms of self-organisation. Under the current globalisation trend, practices of networked dissent will become more important as cultural products, including norms, are increasingly disseminated transnationally.

Before elaborating more on the theoretical perspectives that inform this paper, let us take a short detour over the collected data. Data has been collected in three different settings – Cambodia, Sweden and Palestine. The section on networked dissent is exemplified through the case of Sweden and secondary data collected in regard to the #MeToo movement, while the section on reverse discourse is further advanced and understood through the theoretical literature on the Négritude movement as well as interviews made during nine field trips to Cambodia between 1995 and 2014 with women activists, NGO workers, politicians and people working in the media.¹ These interviews contributed to my understanding of the developments of civil society-based resistance and their impact on the political systems and local knowledge regimes.² Due to the ongoing nature of the data collection, this assemblage of material has been analysed continuously, gradually and cumulatively, which has allowed new insights to develop along the research process; among other things, how to approach resistance formations (Hannerz 2003, 207; Espinoza 2015, 3).

The section of spatial resistance draws upon interviews made by my research group RESIST, in Gaza and the West Bank with 32 civil society members and activist in 2013. I also deploy on some 20 interviews that I carried out in Palestine in 1999. Foucault’s notion of heterotopias served as a point of departure and source of inspiration for further interrogating the function of space for resistance formations.³

The concept of “resistance”

Power comes in many different forms. Sometimes hierarchies are maintained with brute force. At other times, however, they are insisted by productive truth regimes that form subjects who “voluntarily” subordinate themselves. Hierarchies are often sustained by subordinates who are not only willing but sometimes even enthusiastic in their obedience to the power (Baaz et al. 2017). While resistance corresponds to different types of power, when resistance is enacted, it is not always obvious what relations of power are being challenged. To distinctly carve out one particular governing technology and thereafter argue for a direct link to a specific relation of resistance is therefore a difficult research endeavour. Still, there is a noticeable correspondence between how power is applied and the resistance that is performed (cf. Baaz and Stern 2015; Stern, Hellberg, and Hansson 2015; Lilja 2021).

Previous research demonstrates how resistance is sometimes carried out through non-cooperative forms of resistance, such as demonstrations, sit-ins or riots, as a reaction to authoritarian policies enacted through the State apparatus (Baaz, Lilja, Schulz, and Vinthagen 2021; Chenoweth and Stephan 2011; Sharp 1973). A complimentary form of resistance, however, instead capitalises on hegemonic truths in order to incite cracks in the dominant understandings of what is real. This kind of resistance works to mitigate inequalities through negotiating hierarchies and cultural values. It is resistance that directs itself towards power, which can be localised to knowledge regimes (Bleiker 2000; Lilja 2021; Wiksell 2021; Lilja 2020). In addition, if power works through disciplinary training, detailed surveillance and examination, resistance will be about refusing difference, avoiding surveillance or assuming a non-disciplinary wildness (Lilja and Vinthagen 2014).

Another issue at stake when unpacking the notion of resistance in relation to power is who resists. Anna Johansson and Stellan Vinthagen (2013) emphasise resistance as action, while omitting the subject:

there is no point in tying “resistance” to the subject. (…) acts of resistance are, like any other acts, done by someone since all acts have actors and rely on some form of agency. Thus, yes, subalterns do resist, but the resistance is not an attribute of the subaltern subject. (Johansson and Vinthagen 2013, 36)

Resistance, from this perspective, does not “originate” within the subject, rather it arises in a combination of subjectivity, relationships and context (Johansson and Vinthagen 2013). Kristin Wiksell (2021) does not argue for detaching the act from the subject, but argues that to include the label of subalternity in the definition of resistance makes complex patterns hidden.

I concur that removing the “subaltern” from the definition of resistance makes sense since much resistance today (climate activists, among others) is not carried out by subjects who can be regarded as “subalterns”. Still, if resistance is stripped from subalternity, relations of inequality also tend to disappear in our understandings of dissent. Removing “subalternity” opens up for an analysis of dissent, in which the concept of resistance is embraced to understand “power struggles” – or a matching of “forces” (Lilja and Vinthagen 2021). In this paper, I do not demand that resistance must be carried out by “subalterns”, indeed, such singular positions rarely exist. Individuals are mostly powerful and powerless simultaniously within different relations. And I would also suggest, that the act should be in focus when researching different forms of resistance. Despite this, in order to understand the resistance, who performs it matters. When interrogating resistance, it must always be understood in the context of the prevailing power-relations and – to avoid ending up researching power struggles – analysed when exercised in asymmetrical situations. In this, it is important to remember that “resistance is not an intrinsic quality of an act but a category of judgment about acts” (Barker 2004, 178). Thus, in the end, in academic texts, it is the researcher who presents an interpretation of what is feasible for understanding “resistance” versus “power”.

Just because resistance is carried out by someone who experiences repressive laws, low status or a limited room to manoeuvre, does not mean that the resistance is generally “desired”. Resistance sometimes contributes to democratic processes. However, at other times resistance circumscribes democratic processes, uses violent means or establishes new hierarchies. Moreover, resistance sometimes not only challenges but also provokes power, which creatively changes its appearance.

The concept of “formation” and “formation of resistance”

Before framing different resistance formations, let us pause to consider the basic scaffolding of the concept of formation. According to the Cambridge Dictionary, a formation is “the process by which something comes into existence or begins to have a particular order or shape.”⁴ This indicates a pattern of repeated acts and relationships, which make up a specific form. When analysing dissent, the definition allows us to embrace both the process of resistance mobilisations as well as how the resistance amassed takes on a particular shape of its own. How is the resistance repeated, entangled and patterned over time, which results in a specific formation of resistance? By taking this approach, analysing a formation becomes broader than, for example, Stuart Hall’s (1997) conceptualisation of “culture”, which is understood as shared conceptual maps, systems of classification and representations.

Within peace and development studies, the concept of formation has been applied to display different processes in peace-building. According to Richmond: “(p)eace formation represents complex but increasingly visible expressions of critical agency aimed at ending cycles of state formation, and related inequalities, often where more formal peace processes have entrenched them” (Richmond 2013, 272; cf. Aning et al. 2018). This definition should be put in the context of recent trends within peace-building, which highlight bottom-up processes as a response to the last twenty years of liberal peace (Richmond 2013). As Elisa Randazzo (2016, 1353) describes it, there is a desire to rethink peace-building from the bottom up, which is “premised on acknowledging the unsuitability of top-down governance, condemned as inherently hegemonic and out-of-touch with local realities”. Local agency is considered to be accessible through centring on the local. Acknowledging the local would open up space for “a new, post-liberal, politics which is more locally “authentic”, resonant and agential, to emerge.” (Richmond 2009, 326).

The hunt by Richmond and others to capture different formations is narrowed down to formations in peace-building contexts. In this paper, the concept of formation is used to pin down resistance movements with their own temporality and historicity, which sometimes comprise individual and/or collective resistance as well as non-cooperative and/or meaning-making dissent. This is elaborated further below.

Resistance formations: three examples

In the above, the concepts of “resistance” and “formation” were briefly discussed. Next, I roughly sketch three types of resistance formations: (1) Reverse discourse, (2) Spatial resistance, and (3) Networked dissent. In this, I follow the work of political scientist Ekström (2012), who argues that using several cases enriches the analysis and adds variety, breadth and increased nuances to the research. All in all, the three cases allow me to grasp the complexity of different resistance movements, from which it is possible to construct a conceptual framework of analysis for further research on resistance formations.

Formations of reverse discourses

Reverse discourse is a concept that was coined by Foucault (1990) to describe how subjects marked by subalternity involve the categories and vocabularies of the disciplining rhetoric, precisely in order to contest it (Butler 1995, 236). Given that subjects are constantly in the process of being produced and are repeatedly constituted in subjection, this enables the reverse discourse; that is, the possibility of a repetition that repeats against previously established meanings (Butler 1997, 93). Foucault writes: “Deviancy returns from abjection by deploying just those terms which relegated it to that state in the first place – including ‘nature’ and ‘essence’” (Foucault in Parry 1994, 194).

Reverse discourse is then to be seen as a practice of (re)signification that bargains with various subaltern subject positions. Subjects who experience that their identities are deemed as different, non-relevant, uninteresting or even dangerous, present themselves in new versions in order to escape the lives that are produced in tandem with low-status subject positions (Foucault 1981, 101; Foucault in Butler 1995, 236). While transforming these subject positions, by assigning them new status and significance, reverse discourses represent sites of resistance.

In this paper, reverse discourses are discussed as a specific resistance formation that is populated by subjects who utilise the fact that significations are never static in order to negotiate their position in contexts of power. This type of “formation”, I suggest, can be understood through the “Négritude” movement, which developed in the 1930s and onwards, and contained the self-affirmation of black peoples as well as the overall affirmation of “the black world”. Or, as expressed by Mikela Lundahl (2009), the Négritude writers were engaged in achieving political change through the accentuation of race (Lundahl 2009). The whiteness and blackness couplet, in this context, should be seen as a consequence of the colonial situation. The colonisers drew attention to the differentiation of colour and regulated human interaction on that basis. Thus, skin colour became absolutely central to the colonial order and “black” and “white” gained its meaning within this situation (Lundahl 2009; Azar 2001; cf. Sartre 1948; Fanon 1967). Fanon blamed the Europeans for the preoccupation of colour within African thought, stating that: “The concept of Negro-ism [négritude in the French original], for example, was emotional if not the logical antithesis of that insult which the white man flung at humanity” (Fanon 1967, 171).

The Négritude movement can be seen as a form of reverse discourse, in which black people negotiated their position by emphasising it and attaching new meaning to it. Thus, while embodied subject positions are mostly marked by intersectionality and friction, this complexity was “hidden” by the subjects’ adhering to the Négritude movement; instead colour was purposefully underlined as the important feature of one’s repertoire (Braidotti 1994). It was a kind of resistance that employed both matter (bodies) and the symbolic.

While the support for the Négritude movement slowly faded away and/or transformed into new forms, the strategy of reverse discourse is also highly prevalent in other contexts. In my interviews with female politicians in Cambodia, some of them seemingly used the stereotype of “women” in order to get political power, and, at the same time, raise women’s status. Among other things, women NGO workers/politicians in Phnom Penh repeated that “female politicians” are emotional and understand the needs and feelings of others, thereby, it is argued, women should get more political power:

Men have big egos. They can sacrifice innocent people to save their egos if they are afraid to “lose their face”. More women in the government would create a change. Women would create a less violent and a more honest political system. Women behave better. (Interview with Netra, Phnom Penh, November 1997, previously published in Lilja 2008)

A good leader is a person with his/her heart in the right place and with an education. If women get an education they are better leaders than men, as they know more than men and have their heart in the right place. (Interview with Mom, Phnom Penh, November 1997, previously published in Lilja 2008)

Women and men have the same ability, but sometimes women have more ability than men. Women are better politicians since they are smart. They are good at relations. They are good politicians since they are gentle and good at psychology and understand relations and other people. (Interview with Tevy, Phnom Penh, November 1997, previously published in Lilja 2008)

People respect politicians. They think women understand people better as they take care of basic needs, domestic duties, etc., at the same time as they are politicians. (Interview with Chan, Phnom Penh, November 1997, previously published in Lilja 2008)

This kind of identity politics has become very common in recent years. Currie (2004, 87) states, for example, that the strategy of “difference” “involves the recognition of women’s particularity, usually with reference to the maternal role, and pursue equality through the recognition of this sexual difference”. This explains why some feminist researchers discuss how “women (literally) disguise themselves as women” (Davis and Fisher 1993, 16); or talk about “women “as women”” (Wendt Höjer and Åse 1999, 32; Lilja 2008; Lilja 2016; See also, Gayatri Spivak’s (1993) discussions on the concept of strategic essentialism).

However, the new repetition of the concept of “Négro” or “woman” can never be detached from the old meaning. Butler argues that we must consider the inversion of a word, such as, “woman” and “woman”. Here, it is not a question of an opposition between the reactionary and the progressive usages of the word. On the contrary, a reverse discourse implies a progressive repetition of the reactionary in order to create a subversive effect (Butler 1995, 242; Lilja 2008).

The Négritude movement redefined the subalternate position of “blacks”, while women politicians in Cambodia attached a new status to “women”. Thus, resistance appears as the effect of power, by using power-loaded concepts in new ways. This is also the starting point for the critique against the “reverse-discourse theory” forwarded by Benita Parry. She points to the discussions on nativism. Claiming ancestral purity as an attempt of reverse discourse may end up in nothing but becoming an “other” that reflects the Western assumptions of selfhood, where the “west initiates and the native imitates” (Parry 1994, 175–177; Lilja 2008). Thus, the resistance of reverse discourses in this regard maintains relations of power.

Reverse discourse, as discussed above through the examples of the Négritude movement and female politicians in Cambodia, could be viewed as a specific resistance formation. In both cases, it is a matter of embodied resistance formations, which pinpoints the importance of politicised features, negotiated subject positions and resistance that feeds power. The agents, who sustain formations of reverse discourse, adhere to the same figuration, which they uphold and maintain. A reverse discourse can be spread in more organised manners or grow more dispersed as individuals repeat or perform the same discourse over time. The act of repeating is highly relational, and peoples’ resistance builds on previous subversive statements while still provoking others to reiterate the same discourse. Thus, this resistance formation is composed of a process in which resistance conjures resistance. I suggest that repetition is at the core of this resistance, which displays how productive resistance works. Subjects are able to repeat themselves differently over and over again; that is, to articulate and present themselves continuously in new subversive ways. Repetitions of reverse discourses are part of how our collective values are established, resisted and negotiated.

Spatial resistance formations

Reverse discourses, such as the Négritude movement, are not necessarily “placed” somewhere, but can move transnationally. Other formations of resistance, however, are intimately bound to particular spaces. The Palestinian territories and how they are materially, symbolically and imaginarily interwoven with the Palestinian struggle, suggest the existence of a specific long-term resistance formation, which has developed in a specific area with its specific historical power-relations. As I experienced during my stay in Gaza and the West Bank, that Palestinians are engaged in a wide variety of tactics and approaches to challenge the ongoing occupation. Overt and violent resistance co-exists with what Palestinians call sumūd – “steadfastness” – which encompasses a broad range of actions directed at maintaining a Palestinian presence on the land (Ryan 2015; Richter-Devroe 2011). According to Caitlin Ryan (2015) Palestinian women, speak of sumūd: “as a uniquely Palestinian tactic that allows them to maintain dignity, honour, and a physical presence on the land despite adversity and hardship, and as a form of resistance to the occupation that helps them to cope with daily life” (Ryan 2015, 2). Sumūd, is maintained by both linguistic performativity and forms of bodily performativity (Butler 2015; Lilja 2021). The discourse and practice of sumūd have evolved in a particular space, around land (the occupation of land, memorial places etc.) and the strategy pictured involves land (staying on the ground).

According to Johansson and Vinthagen (2015), the repertoire of sumūd involves strategies of everyday resistance, such as the refusal to leave one’s land, the making of life and community despite the occupation, as well as the regular negotiation of repressive practices at the checkpoints. In addition, as pointed out by Caitlin Ryan (2015), sumūd represents a form of resistance that supports other, more overt forms of resistance, such as demonstrations or more violent mobilisations (Ryan 2015).

It is often the women who carry out sumūd and women are generally seen as important actors in the struggle over Palestinian land. One respondent, a leader of a popular community, stated:

our woman is the midpoint in our society; her ability to take consideration of all elements and people needs in our society is her strongest tool. She is stronger than anyone else; she has a historical symbol in our history. She has taken an equal role as any man in our society. She has sacrificed her life, become a martyr, adviser, and coordinator like any other person in Palestine. She is the one who direct her children to stand up for their rights; she is the one who builds up the people’s durability in our resistance. My mother always supports me and directs me in my choice of action to free our land. (…) She loves her land and she don’t want to lose our land. Tells us to go out and fight for your rights. (Interview with Mohamed, he activist s/he was interviewed in the West Bank in 2013)

This quotation demonstrates the long temporality around the land struggle, but also the richness of what is counted as political acts – being a symbol, taking care of needs, creating resistance subjectivities and encouraging others to resist. Even though each act of resistance is played out separately, the quotation displays how they do not remain isolated from each other, with their own qualities. In fact, as the acts of resistance emerge in the same historical setting and are responding to the same relations of power and violence, the acts are to be seen as embedded in a collectiveness and linked to the same conflicts. So, the practices of resistance in these spatial settings may be specific in their form and objective, but while understood in their particularity, they are never autonomous (Foucault 2009). Or as expressed by Foucault, the specificity of different resistance conducts does not mean that they “remained separate or isolated from each other, with their own partners, forms, dramaturgy, and distinct aim. In actual fact, they are always, or almost always, linked to other conflicts and problems […]” (Foucault 2009, 196–197).

Due to being exposed to either violence and/or different forms of power, these spaces become the scenes of an abundant production of resistance. And the resistance formation emerges as part of an intense knowledge production in a limited space. This can be exemplified by one interview made in Palestine, in which the respondent described how the resistance strategies that are deployed are negotiated over time:

it happens a lot, and there are a lot of arguments and disagreements regarding to the strategies to use. Everyone wants to do it their way, however in the end we find something that we can agree upon and continue with our work. (Interview with Mohamed, activist, West Bank 2013)

Another respondent stated:

Well, my life started with popular resistance at the time of the first intifada. We are few friends that are coordinating together from the time of the first intifada. You have served prison time together, fought together and we have a long history of experience of using popular resistance. Before we started the popular resistance against the wall and the settlement (…). The village of Budrus was the starting point of the non-violent resistance and it experienced the effects of the wall and settlements before the village of Billin. The people of Billin used to go to Budrus and take part of their resistance and they used to come to us. We started as an action to what happen in Budrus as I told you earlier, so it continued in Billin and later it expanded to Nillin to the Nabi Saleh and Maasara. So, it expands to several areas throughout the West Bank. For instance, it happened in al Walaja in Betlehem, Kofur Kadoum in Nablus, in Billin, Nillin in Ramallah. So, it started to spread all over the different areas of the west bank. (Interview with Ahmed, activist, West Bank 2013)

These quotations display how long-term relationships within limited space, with a shared experience of the same oppression, open up space for negotiations, adaptation and inspiration, which makes the struggle more homogeneous.

The Palestinian resistance, as described above, suggests that some mobilisations – or formations of resistance – develop in particular spaces rather than having their main feature connected with the politicising of specific characteristics (such as colour or sex). Indeed, the resistance and mobilising rhetoric of dissent are being encouraged, disseminated, received and staged in settings marked by a physical closeness to others. Thus, specific places, with their particular historical power-relations and cultural connectivity, sometimes become the very hotbed of spatial resistance formations.

In Palestine, where the occupied territory is divided into two areas, this can be problematic. Although exposed to the same power/violence complex, different discourses at times evolve in the different areas. This became clear when I visited the Palestinian areas in 1999. Women I interviewed in the West Bank refused to wear the hijab arguing that “Hamas discourse reduces women to symbols of moralistic, righteous and religious forms of nationalism. They use different ways to convince women that they have to be covered. For nationalist reasons or for religious reasons” (Interview with Sara, West Bank 1999, previously cited in Martinsson and Lilja 2018). Travelling unveiled in Gaza became dangerous for these women, who were exposed to violent punishment; men threw stones at them for not covering their hair and bodies. The veil became the marker of “us” in the West Bank, to be distinguished from “them” in the Gaza Strip. Although these discourses have changed, the evolving resistance struggle in two separate areas – with their own discursive production – sometimes creates two strands of related resistance.

A spatial resistance formation is not dependent upon the increased globalisation, which facilitates broader movements of people and a transnational production and flow of arguments and identities. Instead, spatial resistance formations develop within specific “spatial” settings with their own homogeneous formation. This kind of resistance formation can partly be understood through the concept of “heterotopia”, which was coined by Foucault and used to describe certain spaces that are somehow “other”. “Heterotopia” should be comprehended as external sites that “have the curious property of being in relation with all the other sites, but in such a way as to suspect, neutralise, or invert the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (Foucault 1986, 22–27). Heterotopias exist like “counter-sites”, simultaneously representing, contesting, and inverting all other conventional sites (cf. Sudradjat 2011). They are comprehended as intense, incompatible and contradictory, but still disturb the “outside”. Foucault exemplified these spaces, with ships, cemeteries, brothels, prisons, gardens of antiquity, fairs and Turkish baths, which could be seen as worlds located within worlds; they are mirroring and yet upsetting what is outside.

While the notion of heterotopias clearly displays how limited spaces facilitate cultures within cultures, I would like to take Foucault’s reasoning one step further: not only do these spaces “upset” the outside but sometimes they become seed-beds for resistance formations that are bound to specific places and the people inhabiting these spaces (in relation to an outside). I suggest that the notion of spatial resistance formation, which could be used to further understand the resistance in bounded spaces such as camps but also larger areas populated by indigenous people or occupied areas such as the Palestinian territories or the West Saharan territory. These areas harbour a complex web of interrelated, but still differing, resistance practices; among these, off-kilter resistance, which is an “often ambiguous – practices that productively circumvent power, rather than actively opposing it” (Butz and Ripmeester 1999). In the Palestinian case, the spatial resistance is marked by widely used individual and collective resistance as well as non-cooperative and constructive practices, which are productive of new ways of doing femininity, a home, a nation, et cetera.

Networked resistance

The spatial resistance formation can be contrasted with another resistance formation; that of, sometimes global, passive networks, which suddenly materialise as people mobilise around certain issues (Brunner and Partlow-Lefevre 2020; Hsu 2019; Trott 2020; Lilja and Johansson 2018). The issues that are mostly at the core of this resistance are already discursively anchored and the resistance could therefore be regarded as “passive” networks, which are activated by a trigger. One example of this kind of resistance is the Pussy hat project, which started in 2016. The movement was dedicated to advancing human rights in general and women’s rights in particular. With the pink pussy hats, a global women’s movement was created almost overnight. According to their homepage, millions attended over 600 rallies in countries all over the globe.⁵ It is a kind of networked resistance that started “there” and inspired people to resist “here”. The pink pussy hat movement can be seen as a form of resistance that travelled transnationally and affected people in different venues while being recognised, assumed, made sense of as well as performed. The success in mobilising people transnationally depended upon the fact that the issue of women’s rights has already been discursively established and is therefore recognisable. One precondition for recognition of and the success in mobilising a political question is then a certain discursive preparedness (Carlsson 2009). The feminist resistance can be activated due to a longer historical and discursive production on gender inequalities.

The #MeToo movement can also be drawn upon to illuminate this kind of resistance, which materialises around issues – in this case, sexual abuse. It is to be understood as a kind of resistance that was realised through the reiterations and re-articulations of notions of sexual harassment, which travelled transnationally. It was carried out by those who had experienced bodily suffering and/or fear of sexual abuse and those who, more generally, recognised those experiences as disempowering (Lilja 2022).

One Swedish newspaper, Aftonbladet (7 October 2017, my translation), described the #MeToo movement as the following: “The campaign is now sweeping through Swedish social media. On Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, women actors, journalists, artists and private individuals witness sexual abuse and harassment at the workplace”. The #MeToo campaign was then an umbrella concept for a repetition of similar stories that (re)appeared as people recognised the narratives of the campaign; that is, it was the resistance that circulated. Nearly 80 percent of women in Sweden have been subjected to sexual harassment or abuse, according to an opinion poll conducted by Demoskop for the newspaper Expressen (17 October 2017). Thereby, recognition played a central role in the #MeToo movement. Acts of sexual abuse were recognised, became intelligible and created an affinity between people (Butler 2004). Recognition, here, refers to the identification of a narrative from previous encounters or knowledge (Lilja and Johansson 2018; Martinsson and Lilja 2018).

These kinds of issue-based resistance formations can be interwoven with different subject positions or subjectivities – but not always: the Fridays for the Future movement (an international climate change movement), for example, has probably attracted individuals who do not view themselves as climate activists, but attend as they are concerned about the climate.

The #MeToo campaign broke silences and produced new truths and norms, which in turn materialised in new laws, organisations, configurations of resistance and subject positions. It is, as Judith Butler writes, “a process of materialisation that stabilises the effect of boundary, fixity, and surface I call matter”. The travelling of the #MeToo discourse was facilitated by transnationalism and the “shrinking” world and resulted in the formation of new subject positions. The #MeToo discourse, when travelling, was transcoded; that is, it was involved in processes of interpretation and localisation at different sites (cf. Dingo 2012; cf. Grewal 1999, 801). #MeToo, as a cultural product, came to mean different things in, for example, a Swedish or in a Japanese context respectively; thereby the movement was marked by differences and similarities (Lilja 2022). It was also a short-time movement, which, however, has precursors and it also illuminated contemporary ways of understanding the real.

Concluding discussion: a conceptual framework of analysis

The domains of studies of organised mobilisations have resulted in a curious absence of other forms or resistance within social science scholarship. An exception is the research on more subtle forms of resistance that have been carried out as a specific field, mainly as everyday resistance. Still, the linkages between everyday resistance and collective action have been erased from the frames that are used to understand various mobilisations and resistance movements. This paper has addressed this curious omission, by putting reverse discourse in contrast to other resistance formations. By unpacking both “formation” and “resistance”, new perspectives on dissent are illuminated. As stated previously, a formation is to be seen as the process by which something comes into existence or begins to have a particular shape. The definition allows us to embrace both the process of resistance mobilisations as well as how the resistance assemblage takes on a particular shape of its own. In this paper, the concept was used to shed light on the emergence and practices of different resistance formations and the shape that they take – their key features.

“Reverse discourse”, “spatial resistance” and “networked dissent” should be seen as both theoretical constructs and embodied formations. There are no resistance formation categories that exist independently from materialised resistance formations. Thus, the conceptualisation of a specific resistance formation is a universality that is “incommensurable with any particularity yet cannot exist apart from the particular” (Laclau 1995, 90). I have discussed the three resistance formations as “ideal types”, when materialised; however, these resistance formations, as embodied mobilisations, show variations and sometimes contain traits from different types.

Embodied resistance formations are not metaphorical or symbolic ways of thinking but rather materialistic mappings of patterned resistance in contexts of power. These resistance formations are situated and culturally differentiated. The locations, discursive truths, material conditions and entangled subjectivities of the formations vary, and those differences determine how the formation emerges. Sometimes, the formation revolves around issues such as climate change, inequalities or sexual abuses while at other times, the formation involves processes of self-formation and aims to negotiate possible figures of identification. Often “axes of differentiation” like class, race, ethnicity, gender, age, and so on, interact in the constitution of resistance subjectivities (Braidotti 2011).

The aim of researching formations is not to “lock in” a couple of resistance cultures, but rather to map different diverging and fast-changing formations – patterned resistance develops in different socioeconomic and symbolic locations with its own strategies and is constantly transformed due to cultural mixings and crossovers, which are powerfully interruptive (see, e.g. Werbner 1997, 1). Or in other words, the formation of resistance transforms as the particular material and social context changes, including the prevailing relations of power. Thus, the researcher should not be carving out something permanent but, rather, should be mapping emerging and changing formations.

This paper elaborates on possible components to include in a “sketchy” conceptual analytical framework of resistance formations. I suggest that it is time to move beyond collective movements and shed significant light upon resistance movements that compose various kinds of resistance. More research is warranted on the diversity of resistance formations. Here it is important to note that resistance formations are not homogeneous but also a space of internal struggles and power relations.

Based on three different case studies, I have sketched out three symbolic formations, which have materialised in Palestine, Sweden, Cambodia and elsewhere. The formation of reverse discourse – here exemplified by the “Négritude movement” and Cambodian women’s “strategic essentialism” – emerges in specific material and discursive contexts with populating figurations (cf. Braidotti 2011; Spivak 1993). As previously stated, this kind of resistance aims to negotiate the status and meaning of subaltern subject positions and by doing so, it reveals how the dissent is rooted in a community and history. This kind of resistance is not particularly located in a specific venue; still, it is very much a product of historically developed relations of power, while also producing power. Another resistance formation prevails in limited spaces; here the resistance strategies are agreed upon in negotiations between subjects on the inside. It is developed in closed spaces of interacting subjects who develop joint discourses and strategies in sometimes conflictual processes. In the Palestinian case, the resistance within the spatial location revolves around land and is composed of multiple acts of organised and individual (and everyday) resistance. The third form of resistance culture elaborated in this paper is the networked dissent, which is reproduced through the reiterations of norms that sometimes travel transnationally.

Overall, the formations that are framed indicate that resistance can revolve around issues and/or subject positions (which are often entangled), while having a specific relationship to matter; resistance formations draw on bodies, fight for the right of bodies or develop in close interaction with the earth and physical locations. They develop over time but still have their own temporality as well as historicity.

When sketching the above-encountered formations of resistance, besides wanting to display the variety of resistance, I also sought to display how patterned resistance materialises in different shapes and embarks on different key properties. If resistance involves discourses, and “not only the discourse of resisters, but also about the scientific discourse on resistance” (Johansson and Vinthagen 2013, 38), we must ask the right questions in order to properly embrace different resistance formations. By drawing on the above, my proposal is that to understand different formations of resistance: (1) they must be analysed in the making, not as cemented into different figures; (2) they should be interrogated in relation to space (as developed in or detached from, particular settings); (3) they must be probed in their material semiotic and historical settings; (4) they must be analysed in regard to “subjectivities”, “subject positions” or “issues”; (5) we must search how they are marked by internal conflicts and negotiations, as well as if/how the powers they engage with are intersectional – thus resistance formations must be revealed in their complexity; (6) any analysis must bolster and further our understandings of the temporality of resistance (for example, resistance sometimes stretches over a longer period of time, is “slow” or is temporarily activated); (7) research is warranted that encompasses the complex nature of resistance, in which resistance both nurtures, challenges and profits on power; (8) we must engage with the messy mix of, sometimes overlapping, everyday, organised, non-cooperative or constructive resistance, which together constitute different resistance formations; and, finally (9) we must interrogate how resistance is repeated and what fuels the repetitions (power, norms, violence, recognitions, emotions, loyalties etc.).

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Stellan Vinthagen and Mikael Baaz for their feedback – thank you for your time and support! The author would also like to express my sincere gratitude to the anonymous reviewers for their very helpful comments. In addition to this, I would like to express my gratitude to Pauline Martin, who has worked as my copy-editor for many years. This article was written within a research programme funded by the Swedish Research Council. Project title: “Resistance and its Impact on Processes of Democracy”. Project Number: 2017-00881.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Vetenskapsrådet: [Grant Number 2017-00881].

Notes on contributors

Mona Lilja

Mona Lilja currently serves as a Professor of Peace and Development Research at the School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Lilja’s area of interest is the linkages between resistance and social change as well as the particularities – the character and emergence – of various forms of resistance. She is the author of the recently published book Constructive Resistance: Repetitions, Emotions, and Time (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2021).

Notes

1 I have also taken measures to protect my respondents. First and foremost, the names of the respondents will not be revealed but the respondents have been given fictitious names.

2 These interviews were carried out by me and the RESIST research group (comprising Mikael Baaz, Stellan Vinthagen, Mona Lilja and Michael Schulz).

3 I have taken measures to protect my respondents. When requested, the names of the respondents remain secret. I have also edited some quotations for clarity and removed some repetitions.

4 https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/formation

5 https://www.pussyhatproject.com/our-story