How resistance encourages resistance: theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’

ABSTRACT

Lately, the concept of ‘resistance’ has gained considerable traction as a tool for critically exploring subaltern practices in relation to power. Few researchers, however, have elaborated on the inter-linkage of shifting forms of resistance; and above all, how acts of everyday resistance entangle with more organized and sometimes mass-based resistance activities. In this paper, these entanglements are analysed by taking into consideration the connections between articulations of resistance and technologies of power. Empirical observations from Cambodia are theorized in order to provide better theoretical tools for searching and investigating the inter-linkage between different resistance forms that contribute to social change. In addition, it is argued that modalities of power and its related resistance must be understood, or theorized, in relation to the concepts of ‘agency’, ‘self-reflexivity’ and ‘techniques of the self’.

KEYWORDS:

• Resistance
• power
• subordination
• self-reflexivity
• Cambodia

Introduction

Over the last decades, the concept of ‘resistance’ has gained considerable traction as a tool for critically exploring subaltern practices in relation to power. Slavoj Žižek (2002, pp. 66–67) even goes so far as to argue that the hegemonic attitude in the social sciences of today is that of ‘resistance’; he writes:

The hegemonic attitude of academia is that of resistance – all the poetics of the dispersed marginal sexual, ethnic, lifestyle multitudes (the mentally ill, prisoners) resisting the mysterious central (capitalized) Power. Everyone resists, from gays and lesbians to rightist survivalists – so why not make the logical conclusion that this discourse of resistance is the norm today and, as such, the main obstacle to the emergence of the discourse that would effectively question the dominant relations of Power?

Departing from this observation, it is noteworthy that relatively few scholars have so far elaborated on the inter-linkage of shifting forms of resistance in general and how acts of everyday resistance entangle with more organized and sometimes mass-based resistance activities in particular. In order to better understand resistance as practice, such entanglements need to be carefully analysed by taking into consideration the connections between technologies of power and various practices of resistance. For a more coherent understanding, modalities of power and resistance should, in addition, be theorized in relation to the concepts of ‘agency’, ‘self-reflexivity’ and the ‘techniques of the self’.

In this paper, we seek to respond to this challenge by exploring how organized resistance can encourage new everyday resistance activities. Departing from primary data collected in Cambodia, we will theorize some empirical observations made in order to provide better theoretical tools for analysing and understanding the inter-linkage between different resistance practices, which by extension, promotes social change.

For the purpose of our argument, we have identified two major trajectories in the scholarly literature on resistance. The first is a group of scholars that relies on ethnographic inquiries, emphasizing the multifarious ways that different resistance practices are enacted. These scholars argue that there exist different forms of resistance on a sliding scale; ‘withdrawal’ and ‘everyday resistance’ are understood in relation to other forms of resistance that might follow, for example: riots, social movements and the formation of political parties. In their analysis, scholars in this trajectory tend to reinforce (often implicitly) certain conceptualizations of power, which often presuppose that power and subjects are entities that possess qualities that pre-exist social relationships. Below, we will, in further detail, discuss two researchers, namely James Scott and Asef Bayat, who in different regards correspond to this curriculum.

Beside this first trajectory, it is also possible to speak about a body of scholarship that is advocated by, among others, Saba Mahmood. This second body of scholars embraces the concept of agency, and centres on resistance as framed in a way that focuses on the subjects’ relational character and agency as informed by the historically contingent discursive traditions in which they are located. In what follows, we will adopt the latter’s approach to agency, resistance and subversive identities in order to reimagine and suggest how the relationship between different forms of everyday and organized resistance can be understood. By this, the paper seeks to add to Scott’s and Bayat’s frameworks in order to further capture the facets of resistance that set the scene for social change. By embracing power and subjects’ relational character, we argue that not only are the practices of everyday resistance often followed by more organized resistance, but also that the latter practice in fact can encourage or create the former. In this sense, resistance is not only a result of various relations of power, but also resistance. Neatly put: (organized) resistance encourages (everyday) resistance.

Our concern about (a) the entanglement of power and resistance as well as (b) resistance and resistance, emanates from an interest in and struggle with understanding resistance as an engine for social change. In order to explore the power–resistance–resistance nexus, we will analyse resistance in two cases. Firstly, a case study that focuses on four non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that work with various gender-based violence (GBV) issues in Cambodia. Secondly, a case study that analyses how GBV in general and the crime of forced marriage in particular have been advanced in the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC). The ECCC is a ‘hybrid’ war crimes court established by the Cambodian Government and the UN in 2003 with the aim of trying the most senior leaders of Democratic Kampuchea (DK) and those who are believed to be most responsible for grave violations of national and international law (ECCC 2014a). By this, the ECCC constitutes an important instrument in Cambodia’s currently on-going, long and difficult transitional justice process (See further Baaz 2015a, 2015b; cf. Baaz 2015c).

The remainder of the article is set out as follows: in the two forthcoming sections, we will map and critically explore the nuances of the existing theoretical production of resistance, with a particular focus on the scholars mentioned by name above. Put in a different way, we will position the paper in relation to previous research and identify the gap in the existing literature that it intends to fill. This puts our analysis on organized and everyday resistance in Cambodia in a scholarly context. After this, we turn to our primary data and analyse the connections between various forms of resistance and investigate how these connections challenge us to reconsider the concepts of power and subjectivity. In a final section, our findings and some reflective and concluding remarks are presented.

Previous research on ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’

Scott is a researcher who has contributed extensively to the development of everyday resistance as an analytical category within the emerging academic field of Resistance Studies. Several researchers have been inspired by his studies in which he shows how non-organized resistance can have a great impact on social change. Campbell (2002), Richter-Devroe (2011) and others have demonstrated the ability of poor people to resist by various means such as: foot-dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, narratives, etc. By implementing these practices they have adopted a form of resistance that, on the one hand, answers their needs and, on the other, responds to the existing repressive political conditions (see also Bayat 1997c, Sullivan 2003). In this regard, ‘everyday resistance’ exhibits an alternative form of resistance; one that is not as dramatic and visible as rebellions, riots, demonstrations, revolutions, civil war and other organized, collective and/or confrontational articulations of resistance (Scott 1985, 1990). ‘Everyday resistance’, something Scott interchangeably calls ‘infra-politics’, is: quiet, dispersed, disguised or otherwise seemingly invisible. He argues that, certain behaviours of subaltern groups – such as: escape, sarcasm, passivity, laziness, misunderstandings, disloyalty, slander, avoidance or theft – are tactics that they use in order to both survive and undermine repressive domination; especially in contexts where open resistance is considered too dangerous.

Scott (1985, Table 6.1) introduces a general categorization of resistance, building on two main expressions, namely: (a) the public; and, (b) the disguised. These two forms of resistance relate to three forms of domination – (i) material; (ii) status; and, (iii) ideological – resulting in six types of resistance. From this follows that resistance exists as publicly declared resistance (open revolts, petitions, demonstrations, land invasions, etc.) against: (1) material domination; (2) assertion of worth or desecration of status symbols against status domination; (3) counter-ideologies against domination. In addition, resistance also exists in the disguised form (low profile, undisclosed or ‘infra-politics’) as everyday resistance, namely: (4) direct resistance by disguised resisters against material domination; (5) hidden transcripts of anger or disguised discourses of dignity against status domination; and, (6) dissident subcultures (for example, millennial religion, myths of social banditry, class heroes) against ideological domination. The practical techniques come in many varieties but are generally quiet, disguised and anonymous (Scott 1989, p. 37).

According to Scott (1989), the form of resistance depends on the form of power exercised. Those that claim that ‘real resistance’ is organized, principled and has revolutionary implications, entirely overlook the role of power relations, which limit the different forms of resistance. If we only care for ‘real resistance’ then, he argues, ‘all that is being measured may be the level of repression that structures the available options’ (p. 51).

In addition to this, Scott also advances some interesting ideas regarding the interaction between different forms of resistance. The practice of ‘withdrawal’, according to Scott, might precede ‘everyday resistance’, riots, social movements and political parties, which are the other forms of acknowledged resistance. This means that, for example, ‘everyday resistance’ might contribute to riots or social organization.

Scott’s theoretical work has made him very respected within Resistance Studies, but he is not free from criticism (See, for example, Tilly 1991, Kelly 1992, Gal 1995, Howe 1998, Bleiker 2000, Gupta 2001). For instance, his way of conceptualizing resistance has been criticized for relying on an understanding of the peasant’s mind as free and unpersuaded by hegemonic arguments, while domination is viewed as purely coercive (See Mitchell 1990, pp. 562, 564, Butz 2011).

According to Bayat, Scott’s outline of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ has undoubtedly contributed to recovering the Third World poor from ‘passivity’, ‘fatalism’ and ‘hopelessness’. In addition, Bayat also underlines that Scott’s work is important regarding the understanding of whether or not the poor constitute a destabilizing force. Many still view the politics of the poor in terms of a revolutionary/passive dichotomy. Bayat (1997c, p. 56) argues that the concept of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ contributes profoundly to a shift in this regard.

In spite of his general positive attitude, Bayat is also partly critical of Scott’s work and argues that the outline of ‘everyday resistance’ needs to be developed further. Among other things, Bayat (1997c, pp. 53–72) claims that ‘Scott’s “Brechtian mode of class struggle and resistance” is insufficient to account for the dynamic interactions and on-going activities of the urban poor in the “Third World”’. Their struggle should not only be understood as hidden, quiet and individualistic. Instead, the struggles of the urban poor are also proactive; that is, disenfranchised groups, in their attempts to improve their life chances (in terms of capital, social goods, opportunity, autonomy and thus power) strive to limit the benefits of the dominant groups (Bayat 1997a, pp. 2–6, 12, 1997b, 1997c, 2000, 2009).

All things considered, Bayat offers a theory of resistance that not only moves beyond Scott’s but also differs from the majority of existing theories on social movements. By conclusion, he argues that what we see is a different kind of political activism when it is done by the ‘ordinary’ people in Third World cities; or rather the poor and ‘informal’ people that live in unauthorized urban neighbourhoods and engage in the unofficial economy: the street vendors, the squatters, unemployed or underemployed. Their activism is one of the everyday, and it involves resistance – but it is not necessarily ‘hidden’ or ‘disguised’, or non-collective or informally organized, as Scott argues. Instead Bayat claims that this ‘quiet encroachment’ of fluid categories of marginalized and informal groups is flexible and adapts to circumstances, all with the purpose of creating a more self-regulated and dignified life. In the initial stage, resistance is carried out in an individualistic and quiet way; however, it becomes a public and collective struggle as soon as the state or other power elites crack down on the advancements of the informal people. When these atomized individuals – for example, the street vendors – are threatened with removal by the police, they get together and mobilize among each other despite not having a previous organization or movement, often not even knowing one another in advance, and despite normally competing against one another on the street market. The threat of the power elite against their small subsistence activity brings them together as a result of ‘passive networks’ of scattered individuals who live in a similar position in a shared public space. These passive networks become activated when they need to make public and collective defensive efforts and articulate collective claims; demanding their rights against a state that they would otherwise mostly ignore and try to be independent of. In this case, external threats are main factors behind collective mobilization. Other main factors include sudden increased opportunities to move forward in times of state crisis; crises of legitimacy and capacity due to economic problems, wars, revolutions or other similar major processes of change. Bayat claims that the poor are indeed political; however, they do not typically create the same kind of sustained mobilizations as the middle class or other stronger groups (in the form of traditional ‘social movements’). Instead much of the mobilizations of the urban poor circulate around kinship/ethnicity-based networks, or ‘imagined solidarities’ in fluid and heterogeneous groups, and groups without permanent communication channels or common identity (Bayat 1997a, pp. 2–6, 12, 1997b, 2000, 2009).

Bayat describes how these latter types of ‘social movements’ are marked by quiet, atomized and prolonged mobilizations with episodic collective actions; struggles without clear leadership, ideology or structured organization, which would place them as a counterpoint against the state. Their activities are not carried out as conscious political acts; rather it is the force of necessity to survive and live a dignified life that drives them. Still, they often deliberately avoid collective effort, large-scale operations, commotion and publicity. At times squatters, for instance, prevent others from joining them in specific areas; and vendors discourage their counterparts from settling in the same vicinity. Many even hesitate to share information with similar groups about their strategies. Yet, as these seemingly desperate individuals and families pursue similar paths, their sheer cumulative numbers transform them into a potential social force. This complex mixture of individual and collective action results from both the social position of the actors and, to use Tarrow’s terms, the ‘structure of opportunities’ available to them (Tarrow 1998).

The above literature review displays how everyday resistance and organized resistance might be linked to each other according to two alternative dynamics. There is, on the one hand, what we would like to call the linear development dynamics, in which everyday resistance might transform into large scale, collective and organized resistance (Scott). This form of dynamics is so far only indicated but remains largely unexplored within the field of Resistance Studies. We do not have a theory explaining which factors facilitate which resistance trajectories (in various contexts). On the other hand, there is what we call the oscillation dynamics, in which everyday forms of resistance (‘quiet encroachment’) and collectively organized resistance (sudden large mobilizations in which ‘passive networks’ are temporarily activated) might be utilized in different times and spaces, depending on what is feasible, as a reaction to the type of repression applied against the resistance (Bayat). The expression of resistance is then due to the specific situation at hand and might prevail as both hidden and public, both individual and collective, both informal and (sometimes) formally organized and so on. This second type of resistance dynamics (oscillation) is theoretically developed and empirically explored among the urban poor in Third World city slums, but essentially as a reaction to the power expression and not as a reaction to resistance. Even if we do understand it as a form of resistance that encourages (new) resistance, it remains unclear what kind of learning processes evolve, how different tactics of resistance follow each other and if there is anything more to it besides the oscillation back and forth.

In what follows, we will depart from, and add to, the outlines of Scott and Bayat by emphasizing a number of patterns. Most importantly, we will suggest that different forms of organized resistance often become the very origin for more subtle forms of everyday resistance, which are important forces in creating social change. Secondly, we will add to our earlier outline of power as a force that creates and shapes different forms of resistance, now arguing that not only power but also resistance creates resistance). We will also, in this regard, argue that in order to understand social change we should acknowledge the interaction of various forms of resistance in different spaces and how they encourage one another.

Resistance, relations of subordination and self-reflexivity

Before we analyse the resistance practices of organized and everyday resistance in a Cambodian context, it is useful to discuss the concepts of power and resistance in more detail. Our point of departure in this regard is that power and resistance cannot be seen as disconnected or detached from each other (Sharp et al. 2000). Different forms of resistance are shaped by existing power relations; that is, if power is expressed (or understood) in a particular way, certain forms of resistance will prevail. To illustrate this point, if we, for example, apply Robert Dahl’s concept of ‘decision-making power’, by focusing on the deciding of who has the capability to affect certain outcomes, we should, he argues, focus on those who have ‘more’ power by studying concrete and observable behaviours (Dahl in Lukes 1974, pp. 12–13). In this case, power is understood as a person’s ability to affect the pattern of an outcome against the desires of other actors (Dahl in Kabeer 1994, pp. 224–229, Lukes 1974, p. 13). This kind of power generates particular resistance strategies, including: concrete vetoes, demonstrations or social movements’ continuous experimentation and invention of new forms of resistance. Other forms of resistance, however, will not be effective in this case. Resistance to ‘disciplinary forms of power’, on the other hand, materializes as practices that work to negotiate different disciplinary means: embracing norms, stereotypical constructions, optimums, hierarchies and ranks. Since disciplinary power is about training, examination and detailed surveillance, resistance to discipline could also be about refusing to participate in self-disciplinary practices.

But it is not only different forms of power that shape distinct articulations of resistance, but paradoxically enough, resistance also reinforces and/or creates new power relations. Thereby, power and resistance can sometimes exist in a mutually constitutive relationship. In addition, the entanglement of power and resistance involves those engaged in different power relations. The dichotomizing of resisters and dominators in fact ignores that there are different systems of hierarchy that interact. Therefore, individuals can be simultaneously powerful and powerless within parallel systems (Hollander and Einwohner 2004). To conclude, there is a lot to gain if power and resistance are understood as interconnected and entangled.

When we speak about resistance in this paper, we refer to a subaltern practice that could challenge, negotiate and/or undermine power. In addition, resistance might also be carried out on behalf of other subalterns. In this case, we can speak about proxy resistance (Lilja and Baaz 2016). As implied earlier, resistance might be parasitic on power and/or nourishing as well as being able to undermine power. If power changes, then resistance has to change as well and a strategy that is completely ineffective in certain contexts can be challenging and subversive in others, and vice versa.

The forthcoming discussion departs from an analytical framework that separates organized and everyday resistance. Differently put, we have chosen to distinguish between two ‘ideal types’ of resistance: ‘everyday resistance’ and ‘organised resistance’ (Scott 1989, p. 34). In reality these ‘pure’ forms of resistance often show variations that contain traits from both types. We approach the concept of ‘everyday resistance’ as a concept that covers how subalterns act in their everyday lives in ways that might undermine power; or to be more precise: resistance that is not formally organized (yet or in that situation). This type of resistance is not always easily recognized like the other main type of resistance: organized resistance – such as rebellions, oppositional campaigns or demonstrations. Our understanding of the concept of everyday resistance differs from Scott’s in at least two regards. Firstly, in contrast to Scott, we distinguish everyday resistance as a practice that is often, but not necessarily always, hidden. Hence, we do not consider everyday resistance as something necessarily quiet, dispersed, disguised or otherwise seemingly invisible (Scott 1989, 1990). For example, to which we will return below, female witnesses testifying about the horror of the Khmer Rouge (KR) regime might also be interpreted in terms of everyday resistance.

Secondly, even though we recognize that different forms of power, such as decision-making power, power-over and/or power-to, might be distinguished and analysed in relation to resistance, we, in this paper, depart from a more relational view of the resisting subject. This implies that the resistance, agency and subjectivity of the agent are informed by the dominant as well as challenging and alternative discourses, which circulate in the very context of the subject. In order to add more complexity to our analysis, we also follow David Butz’s (2011) argumentation that asserts that a broader conception of power must be added to Scott’s model of everyday resistance. In his critique, Butz leans upon Timothy Mitchell, who concludes that Scott relies on an understanding of domination as purely coercive. It is the bodies of the peasants that he studies that are forced into subalternity. At the same time as their outward-oriented behaviour is dominated, however, their minds remain free and thereby unpersuaded by hegemonic arguments. In this regard, it is argued that Scott assumes a subjectivity that pre-exists and is maintained despite dominating discourses and persuasions. In addition, the notion of power, which serves as a point of departure, is believed to function through limiting people’s options, rather than through creating truths and subjectivities (Mitchell 1990, pp. 562, 564, Butz 2011). According to Butz (2011), Scott is able to maintain this coerced body/unpersuaded mind dichotomy through these concepts of power and subjectivity. Although we are not totally convinced that Scott would agree with the Butz–Mitchell line of argument, we want to emphasize that we do not consider the resisting subjects as being autonomous subjects who operate outside discourse. In this sense, resistance might not be hidden but might still be composed of rather subtle practices; for example, by performing subversive identities (see also Butler 1995, Mitchell 1990, pp. 562, 564).

In order to be able to understand how resisting subjectivities and everyday resistance stem from more organized forms of resistance more in detail, we can gain a lot by taking a short detour to Saba Mahmood’s engagement with Foucault with the aim to put her theories into perspective with the literature on resistance reviewed above. In Mahmood’s (2005) reading of Foucault, she encourages us to think about agency as ineluctably bound up with the historical and cultural contexts through which the subject is formed. Paradoxically, specific relations of subordination then, in some senses, enable the capacities required in order to undertake particular kinds of moral actions. Mahmood connects this paradox to Foucault’s suggestions in regard to the study of ethics. One aspect of ethics, which Foucault has mentioned, refers to how individuals are ‘called upon’ to recognize their moral obligations. Whether it is divine law, rational rule or cosmological order, the individual might experience some kind of authority through which she/he as a subject comes to recognize the truth about herself/himself and how she/he interacts with those who are deemed to hold the truth (Mahmood 2005, pp. 29–30; cf. Lilja 2013). This is related to operations that one performs on oneself in order to become an ethical subject. This is what Foucault addresses as the ‘techniques of the self’. Mahmood’s Foucauldian formulations help us to understand agency as a product of the historically contingent discursive traditions in which they are located. Overall, agency is seen as something made possible by a certain kind of self-reflexivity; a ‘particular kind of relation to oneself whose form fundamentally depends on the practices of subjectivation through which the individual is produced’ (Mahmood 2005, p. 32; cf. Lilja 2013).

While Mahmood uses her theoretical insights from Foucault to explain how women from the ‘mosque movement’ recognize themselves in terms of traditional virtues and codes, measure themselves against and enact these furbished ideals, we arrive at another position (Mahmood 2005, pp. 29–30). Encouraged by Mahmood, we argue that membership of different resisting organizations has allowed our respondents to reflect upon themselves, their power relations, and thereafter to formulate ethical considerations and various articulations of resistance. Put differently, the respondents’ resistance against various power relations is the result of their interpretations of the aim and discourses of the organized resistance, and how they recognize themselves in relation to those interpretations. This, in turn, creates particular conceptions of the self, which have allowed our respondents to move outside the boundaries of the resisting organization and make their own everyday resistance. In the end, self-reflection becomes the very base for an individual’s decision to practice everyday resistance.

How organized resistance encourages everyday resistance: two examples from Cambodia

In this section, we will analyse resistance at two different sites in Cambodia, in which both, in one way or another, deal with GBV. In 2009 and 2010, we made in-depth interviews with different representatives of four NGOs who work against GBV. The selection of the NGOs was done through ‘snowballing’ and includes the following organizations: (a) The Cambodian Women’s Crisis Centre (CWCC); (b) Cambodian Men’s Network (CMN); (c) Gender and Development (GAD); and (d) the Women’s Rights Office (WRO) at the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO). At all organizations, the director of the NGO as well as male trainers who are involved in various training sessions were interviewed (often more than once). At LICADHO, we also met with the Women’s Rights Supervisor. In addition, we also interviewed the director, as well as a former employee of the local organization, Center for Social Development (CSD). These interviews constitute the first of our two cases.

As indicated above, the article also builds upon in-depth interviews with all various stakeholders to the ECCC. In particular, we interviewed women and various volunteers and professionals who assisted these women (proxy resistance) concerning the issue of GBV and how the issue has been dealt with within the ECCC. The positions of the respondents who were interviewed varied; some were professionally involved in the court proceedings (investigating judges, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, investigators, other court officials, etc.); others were witnesses, victims and civil parties (NGOs included). In total, 33 interviews were conducted in Cambodia between May and August 2010. In addition, we have visited the ECCC several times and listened to the court proceedings in place. The latest visits to the ECCC were made in October and November 2013, when the closing statements in Case/001 were presented, and November 2014, when Case 002/02 was scheduled to begin. After having presented these preliminary remarks, let us now turn our attention to the two cases more in detail.

Local civil-society-based resistance against violent masculinities in Cambodia

One example of the causes of more subtle forms of resistance can be found when studying organizations that work against GBV in Cambodia. To reduce GBV, different organizations in Cambodia have recently changed their programmes to focus mainly on men; both as participants and as trainers. Several organizations have created men’s groups, which are run by male trainers and/or trained (male) villagers. The interviews made with representatives for some of these local organizations, display how they practice resistance against violent gender norms within the men’s groups. The male trainers in the men’s groups attempted to shake the cultural order; that is, different gendered images of identity and men’s assuming of a violent masculinity, which resulted in GBV. One such image of identity that the male trainers opposed is the Cambodian woman who needs to be ‘disciplined’ with violence. The male trainers, in this regard, prevail as agents of resistance; carrying out resistance on behalf of the Cambodian women. This can be seen as organized resistance, according to the above definitions. The men’s groups prevail as an organized forum, in which the power relations between men and women are negotiated (See further Lilja 2011, 2012, 2013).

However, and even more important for this paper, the interviews also displayed that the different processes in the men’s groups set off different individual negotiations of gendered discourses and images of identity. For example, one of the Cambodian trainers stated that his work within the men’s groups had made him challenge himself and his subscription to a Cambodian masculinity. In some sense, the man was caught up between the local discourses of masculinity, which he was expected to display and the desire to become someone else (See further Lilja 2011, 2012, 2013). Among other things, he narrated the difficulties he experienced as he tried to move beyond Cambodian gender roles:

I too, am gender-blind! When the children wake up during nighttime I am too tired. I let my wife get up. Sex too (…) what are her feelings and needs? (…) In Cambodia, Cambodian women must offer themselves for their man. Women must have sex even if they are sick (…) I asked my wife to tell me when she wants to have sex. She refused at first. Cambodian women do not show lust, she said. (Interview, trainer, GAD, Phnom Penh, July 2009)

The quote shows an attempt by the respondent to make sense of a non-Cambodian masculinity and to negotiate local discourses of gender. However, traditional discourses of sex were popping up in the very same moment as he struggled to move beyond the very same: ‘Then, when my wife told me she wanted to have sex I was filled with jealousy. I was not used to this’. The two quotes above demonstrate the ambivalence of the trainer, which seems to emerge in the discord between local subject positions and those positions desired and therefore repeated. The man’s practices prevail as everyday resistance as he refuses to discipline in line with prevailing norms of masculinity; instead repeating an alternative subject position. The two quotes also show how, by taking part in the programs of civil-society-based organizations in Cambodia, the man has been inspired to negotiate (on an individual level) the subject positions that he is offered by performing a subversive identity. Thus, the pattern is the opposite of the one described by Scott, with regard to the relationship between organization and resistance. Organized civil-society-based resistance is becoming the very starting point for individuals’ very subtle practices of everyday resistance, by which identity positions and discourses are challenged to empower Cambodian women. This is due to practices of self-reflection, which become the very base for an individual’s decision to practice everyday resistance. Inspired by Mahmood, we suggest that the trainer’s self-reflections, and moral and ethical reflections in regard to these discourses, should be understood as the starting point for challenging his own ‘doings’ in relation to gender. Thus, his performances of resistance within the formal organization become the base for more subtle forms of resistance; that is, resistance by performing a subversive identity position. In this regard, but at a different level, there is a certain convergence with Scott, who insists upon the significance of subaltern self-consciousness, which is a critique of neo-Gramscian theorists, such as Steven Lukes (1974), who are too quick to assume that subalterns suffer hegemonic domination or from false consciousness. To summarize, organized resistance encourages everyday resistance, and reflexivity.

Constructing ‘Forced Marriage’ in Cambodia

The same pattern as in the case of local civil-society-based resistance against violent masculinities in Cambodia was also possible to identify regarding the ECCC. According to our interviews, it has been hard to bring up GBV issues in the ECCC (See further Lilja 2013). For example, the ‘forced marriages’ that took place under the KR period have been difficult to address. One reason for the difficulties with bringing in ‘forced marriages’ as a ‘crime’ is that they have not previously been considered a crime but instead they have been viewed as another form of ‘arranged marriage’. One international lawyer said:

People never mentioned forced marriages in their complaints. They did not consider it a crime (…) but they [eventually] realized that forced marriage was a crime when I talked to them. Approximately 90% had either been married by force themselves or had a relative who been forced to marry (…) Without me forced marriages would not have been on the agenda of the ECCC. (International Lawyer, Phnom Penh 5 August 2010)

The quote shows how the notion of ‘forced marriage’ as a ‘crime’ has been introduced to the Cambodian society from the outside.

Prior to the DK, marriages in Cambodia were essentially a ‘family affair’. As a social institution, marriages were much more than just the union of two people loving one another; it also – and predominantly – represented the union of two extended families. The parents of the prospective couple played a directing role, not only in selecting the candidates but also in conducting different rituals in relation to the wedding process (Heuveline and Poch 2006, pp. 100–102, Jain 2008, p. 1023).

When the KR took power, one of the movement’s most important policies was to destroy the traditional Cambodian family structure; that is, the extended families and close relations between different families, as well as the family being responsible for arranging marriages. What were at stake were a de-individualization of marriage and a transformation of the ceremony into something in which the groom and the bride made an oath to the Angkar rather than to one another and, by extension, the two extended families involved. Marriages became depersonalized agreements between two people who sometimes had no prior knowledge of one another before the marriage. To a certain extent, the Angkar replaced the role of the parents as matchmakers (Locard 2004, pp. 252–254, Heuveline and Poch 2006, p. 102, Jain 2008, pp. 1024–1025). During KR rule, some 500,000 women and men were forced into marriage and the Cambodian authorities’ surveillance also made sure that the marriages were consummated (Locard 2004, p. 257, Jain 2008, p. 1025; interview, national judge, Phnom Penh, 4 August 2010). The Angkar did not allow any competing loyalties and not to follow the directions of the elite frequently led to execution.

For a long time, the KR practice of ‘forced marriages’ was considered nothing but another form of ‘arranged marriage’ by the Cambodian authorities and the ECCC. All this changed in 2008, however, when the Appeals Chamber of the Special Court for Sierra Leone (SCSL) made a landmark achievement in International Criminal Law by categorizing ‘forced marriage’ as a distinct category of crime against humanity (Jain 2008, pp. 1013–1032).

However, following the UN Security Council Resolution 1325 (2000) as well as the landmark achievement by the SCSL, various transnational civil-society agents have supported local civil-society in its efforts to include GBV issues, not at least the crime of forced marriage, on the ECCC agenda (UN/S/RES/1325).

The re-categorization of ‘arranged marriages’ into ‘forced marriages’ by different organizations, however, has transformed the practice from a ‘tradition’ to a ‘crime’. In spite of its success, the re-categorization has been met with a lot of scepticism. For example, one international lawyer working together with a local civil-society-based organization said:

ECCC has ignored my attempts to bring up GBV-issues in Case 001 … For example, one late night in July 2009 when I was sitting on the Bus [operated by the ECCC to transport the Court staff between the ECCC and the Phnom Penh city centre], the highest legal officer beside the co-investigating judges sat six rows behind me, talking very loudly, making sure that I could hear him, to a colleague, complaining that he now has to investigate forced marriage. He ended by saying: ‘isn’t it ridiculous that marriages where they are still married would now be considered a forced marriage’ (International Lawyer, Phnom Penh, 5 August 2010).

To conclude, the ‘forced marriages’ committed during the KR period were earlier regarded as nothing but another form of ‘arranged marriages’ and the organizations fighting GBV crimes have been forced to refigure the social order by introducing the category of ‘forced marriages’ in Cambodian society.

Some women have recognized themselves as victims of forced marriages and want to testify. For example, one victim told us of her experiences of ‘forced marriages’:

My sisters did not want to get married by force. They went to our mother to ask for her advice. She told them to pretend to be ill. She put some mud behind their ears. That is a disease here. But the mud fell off after a while. Then they had to get married. But my sisters refused to get married that day. The others who refused to accept a forced marriage ran into the forest. However, my sisters ran to our parents. Then the Khmer Rouge came and killed them with machetes in front of my parents. (Interview, victim, Phnom Penh, June 2010)

These kinds of stories about ‘forced marriages’ are being told more and more frequently and several individuals want to testify in order to make their memories public. As a result of all this, in April 2014, the Trial Chamber of the ECCC decided that the second ECCC trial (Case 002/02) would include charges of forced marriage (ECCC 2014b).

The decision to bear witness to GBV crimes does not seem to emanate from the urge for personal revenge or profit, but many expressed a desire to establish their memories as a part of the (official) Cambodian history. One witness said: ‘I want to take part in the court and tell my story. That is important to me, as I do not want people to forget what happened. I want the young people to recognize their history’. Similarly, another respondent said: ‘I want to tell everybody what happened. I want people to know’. The aim of displaying the ‘truths’ reflects the moral considerations, self-reflection and relations of power that form the practices of the respondents (Lilja 2013).

According to Tal (1996) bearing witness is a strongly symbolic act of resistance and it is born out of a refusal to bow to outside pressure to revise or to repress experiences. Thus, rather than conformity, the decision to bear witness embraces resistance. For example, the female victims of GBV in the ECCC do not adjust to the common story of ‘arranged marriage’ but tell another ‘truth’. In this, they are being supported by local NGOs but still being opposed or rejected by, for example, many court officials (Lilja 2013). In order to understand this resistance we should consider the relationship between self-reflexivity, different moral codes and ethical conducts, as suggested by Mahmood. Seemingly, the female witnesses and victims of GBV are informed by various organizations that try to negotiate the meaning of the KR marriages. The respondents have chosen to promote the concept of ‘forced marriage’ rather than ‘arranged marriage’ due to their (re-)interpretations of (local and international) moral codes, the events of the KR period, and how they recognize themselves in relation to those interpretations. As ‘subversive’ citizens they ‘negotiate their own values, identities and commitments in relation to the way in which they are encouraged and exhorted to act; determine what they consider is the right thing to do in particular circumstances; and challenge or resist the identities that are offered to or imposed on them (…)’ (Barnes and Prior 2009, p. 3).

Overall, civil-society-based agents have contributed to a situation where women witnesses carry out resistance on an individual level by bearing witness. Thus, the organizations have provided the respondents with interpretations, which later have become the basis for reflections and an individual everyday resistance. Thereby, the resistance cultures and practices of the organizations serve to shape an individual’s knowledge of herself/himself both as a subject of power and a resister to power. Organized resistance again has produced single resistance acts. To conclude, organized resistance has encouraged everyday resistance.

Concluding remarks

The main argument put forward in this paper is not only that power creates resistance (through provocation, reactions, being the target of opposition, etc.), but also that resistance encourages or creates resistance. The field of Resistance Studies has so far largely ignored this fact. By reviewing Scott and Bayat, we learn that some theories help us to understand certain kinds of politics in the everyday, while other theories are necessary to understand other kinds of politics. Scott helps us to understand the submerged forms of ‘infra-politics’, in which subaltern groups are so severely repressed that they utilize ‘hidden transcripts’ in order to sustain and develop their everyday resistance, survival activity, sense of dignity and class interest. Bayat, in addition, helps us to understand the individual and scattered everyday politics as well as how subalterns are brought together and mobilize collectively and with public claim making. This is, on the other hand, not necessarily leading towards sustained mobilization – as studied and claimed by most social movement theory – but might be a process that goes back to the original ‘quiet encroachment’ of individual families and persons, until the next immediate threat (or major opportunity) to their gains and improved positions arises. With the help of Scott and Bayat we are able to understand the stages before sustained collective mobilization; before the social movements challenge the present order.

In the paper, we add to the above frameworks on resistance by displaying how more organized, civil-society-based resistance might encourage and create yet other forms of everyday resistance. In addition, we also argue that in order to understand social change, the interplay between different forms of resistance and power should be acknowledged and further researched. This analysis is enabled by a broadened definition of power. Subjectivities do not pre-exist dominating discourses and persuasions, but discourses are in fact creating truths and subjectivities (Butz 2011, pp. 562, 564). Individual processes of self-reflection might, then, contribute to our understandings of how different forms of resistance feed each other. Thus, to understand how resistance feeds resistance we must take a detour around the concepts of subjects, subjectivities, self-reflection and reflexivity.

Resistance inspires, provokes, generates, encourages or eventually discourages resistance; depending on contextual factors and other circumstances. The most obvious example is when someone’s resistance act inspires others to take part. However, as we have shown above, one form of resistance might also lead to another innovative form of resistance. This may be due to the frustrating results of the first attempt to create resistance; or, as is the main focus in this article, individuals’ experiences of organized and public forms of resistance might inspire them, or others, to develop new resistance forms of identities or everyday behaviour. Put simply, organized resistance could encourage everyday resistance.

Notes on contributors

Mona Lilja is a professor in sociology. She has published widely internationally and her articles appear in, for example, Journal of Political Power, Asian Politics and Policy, NORA: Nordic Journal of Feminist and Gender Research, Feminist Review, Asian Journal of Political Science, Global Public Health and Signs. Her published monographs include: Resisting Gendered Norms: Civil Society, the Juridical and Political Space in Cambodia and Power (2013, published by Ashgate) and Resistance and Women Politicians in Cambodia (2008, published by Nias Press).

Mikael Baaz is an associate professor in peace and conflict studies and a senior lecturer in international law. Some of his latest are published in: International Studies Review, Asian Politics and Polity, Global Public Health, Peace Review, Journal on the Use of Force and International Law, Scandinavian Studies in Law, Leiden Journal of International Law, International Journal on Constitutional Law and Journal of International Criminal Justice.

Michael Schulz is an associate professor in peace and development research at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has published extensively on various issues in the Middle East, for instance ‘A longue durée approach to the role of civil society in the uprisings against authoritarianism in the Arab world’, in Journal of Civil Society, 2015.

Stellan Vinthagen is professor of sociology and the endowed Chair in the study of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is the director of the resistance studies initiative at Amherst and the author of A Theory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil Resistance Works (Zed Books, 2015).

Funding

This work was financially supported by the Swedish Research Council [project no. 2010-2298].

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Acknowledgements

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of the Swedish Research Council, which has allowed us to undertake research in a programme titled ‘Globalization of Resistance: Influences on Democracy Advocators in Civil Society in the South’, from 2011 to 2015 (project no. 2010-2298). This article is an integral part of this wider research programme.