Naming Resistance

Ethnographers, Dissidents, and States

Datos Bibliográficos

ID7097895
AutoresB Coutin (0000-0003-1065-2769, autor de correspondencia), Susan Bibler Coutin, Susan F Hirsch
Año1998
Volumen71
Número1
Páginas1-1
Fecha de publicación1998-01-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaAnthropological Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0003-5491 • E-ISSN: 1534-1518
EditorialJSTOR (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.2307/3317600
OpenAlexW2012816296
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas8
Referencias citadas25

Ethnographic analyses of political dissidence are deeply implicated in the political contests about which ethnographers write. A comparison of the authors' fieldwork among dissidents in Argentina, Kenya, and the United States reveals both the differing dynamics of contests over the political and the complex ways that ethnographers are situated within such contests. In Argentina during the last period of military rule it was dangerous to be defined as political; in Kenya, when multiparty elections were finally authorized, being recognized as political was a prerequisite for legitimacy; and in the United States, where protest is officially legal but unofficially suspect, being defined as political has advantages and disadvantages. We argue that ethnographic writing is inextricable from such contests, and we advocate more explicit attention to how anthropologists negotiate their positions during fieldwork and how they reposition themselves through their writing. [resistance, repression, fieldwork, reflexivity, writing] This article grew out of conversations in which we, Susan Coutin and Susan Hirsch, discovered similarities in our experiences as ethnographers studying political movements and law. While conducting research-Coutin in Argentina and the U.S. and Hirsch in Kenya-we each witnessed or heard about shocking incidents of repression that acquainted us with the terror of overt domination. We realized that we shared the belief that our visibility as researchers and our connections to activists had subjected us to being monitored by those responsible for these incidents. We also worried that our own research and writing could in some way endanger those whose activities we had studied. Reflecting on our own experiences being as dissidents while conducting research made us think more carefully about what it means for ethnographers to label people's actions as particularly when such namings can make individuals, groups, and practices politically suspect in authorities' eyes. The question of who has the agency, authority, power, and position to designate a practice is of critical concern in theorizing resistance and is especially germane to recent debates over the concept of everyday resistance. Those who developed this concept argued that opposition to domination takes myriad forms and that even actions and organizations that actors do not define as political can implicitly critique the structures of power, such as capitalism and racism, in which they are embedded (see Comaroff 1985; Comaroff and Comaroff 1991; Scott 1985; Thompson 1975). Although we recognize that these analysts intended to give credit to apparently powerless individuals and groups for attempting to transform the conditions of their existence, we argue, based on our experiences conducting research in repressive situations, that ethnographic namings of resistance are problematic. Not only do these namings risk reducing the agency of individuals and groups attempting to define their own actions, but also, in that they address an academic audience, ethnographic namings of resistance frequently position ethnographers outside of the political contests that they describe. We are not arguing that resistance must be conscious and intentional to be named as such (see Hobsbawm 1959; Jenkins 1983), but rather that when ethnographers name actions as resistance, they engage ideological and political structures and positionings outside the academy, whether they acknowledge these or not. By juxtaposing various namings of resistance by ethnographers, dissidents, and states, we seek to reconnect the politics of fieldwork with those of ethnographic writing. We argue that such a reconnection is critical to creating a more politically attuned and ethically responsible social science. We view naming as a strategic and contested process, one that is simultaneously a calculated response to particular political circumstances and an expression of individuals' and groups' understandings of their own and others' positions and actions

Biology · Ethnography · Genealogy · Political science · Resistance (ecology · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · History · South Asian Studies and Conflicts · Southeast Asian Sociopolitical Studies