Same plans, different strategies: the multiple faces of resistance

Abstract

This article reports an ethnographic study of resistance in an informal education context: an NGO Day Centre and Hostel for socially excluded adults in Bilbao, Spain. The purpose of this research is to contribute to the field of resistance theory by focusing on a non-school setting. Our analysis uncovered four resistance strategies (The Tell-tale, The Responsible One, The Rebel, The Silent One) amongst clients of the NGO programme. Each allowed clients, in different ways, to confront the structure of the NGO, introduce agency and gain some limited forms of power in terms of influencing their lives at the NGO. This paper explores what excluded adults’ resistance looks like; how it is played out in the NGO setting and how it is experienced by clients themselves.

Keywords:

• Resistance
• informal education context
• socially excluded
• ethnography
• education

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The names of the NGO and people who appear in the text are pseudonyms in order to protect anonymity.

2. In this section we use the first person singular when referring to the decisions and reflexions made in the field by the first author, although such decisions and thoughts were also shared with the second author.

3. Due to the characteristics of the Centre and the fact that some participants left before the research was concluded, we were only able to interview five participants who were living at the Centre.

4. Italics added since a home for the socially excluded does not correspond to the typical image of a home that we share in the social imagination.

5. Tumblr is a popular microblogging platform designed for creative self-expression.

6. As the Centre was far from Bilbao city centre, there were travel-cards used exclusively for official appointments, going to the doctor or other important reasons.

7. Lanbide is an institution established in the Basque Country to facilitate employment in a broad sense, through personalised employment guidance.

8. Basque Country’s regional police.