Stellan Vinthagen
Biographic Data
| ID | 87081 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Stellan Vinthagen |
| GIVEN NAMES | Stellan |
| FAMILY NAME | Vinthagen |
| SIGNATURE | VINTHAGEN S |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Massachusetts Amherst |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 346 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 21 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
The ABC of resistance: Towards a New Analytical Framework
Two significant developments – (1) the rapidly changing world order, and (2) significant gaps in current social science scholarship – call for a further exploration of resistance theories. In this paper, we identify some of the gaps and inconsistencies within the current bulk of research, and seek to contribute to the understanding of resistance, its applications and complexity. In short, this paper discusses three interacting and supporting form…
The visible effects of ‘invisible politics’: ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ and Possible Outcomes
We evaluate existing case studies of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ and explore the possibilities for a systematic research on its political impacts. Due to its elusive nature, the impact of this less visible resistance has rarely been studied. We only find single case studies that make references to varied outcomes in a particular context. Main theorists within the field do suggest a loose hypothesis of ‘cumulative’ effects in which (thousands o…
Conceptualizing ‘Everyday Resistance’: A Transdisciplinary Approach
Everyday resistance is about the many ways people undermine power and domination through their routine and everyday actions. Unlike open rebellions or demonstrations, it is typically hidden, not politically articulated, and often ingenious. But because of its disguised nature, it is often poorly understood as a form of politics and its potential underestimated. Conceptualizing 'Everyday Resistance' presents an analytical framework and theoretical…
Dispersed resistance: Unpacking the Spectrum and Properties of Glaring and Everyday Resistance
Revisiting James C. Scott's classification of forms of resistance, this paper argues that (hidden, subtle) everyday resistance is only one of many types of small-scale or individual resistance practices. We propose the concept of 'dispersed resistance', which might be 'everyday' and subtle, or loud and extraordinary. In addition, drawing on Foucault's works, we suggest at least two ways of conceptualizing dispersed resistance: as 'productive' res…
Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice
How resistance encourages resistance: Theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’
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 con…
Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice
Resisting resettlement in Rwanda: Rethinking Dichotomies of "Survival"/"Resistance" and "Dominance"/"Subordination
This article problematizes the dichotomies between "survival" and "resistance," and between "dominance" and "subordination." Based on fieldwork in Rwanda among peasants who experienced the country's large-scale villagization program, the article shows how some poor farmers – motivated by survival needs – negotiate the reform pressures in a way that amounts to "everyday resistance," while the local reform implementers – as a result of their "in-be…
Defining and Analyzing “Resistance”: Possible Entrances to the Study of Subversive Practices
This article explores the meaning of “resistance” and suggests a new path for “resistance studies,” which is an emerging and interdisciplinary field of the social sciences that is still relatively fragmented and heterogeneous. Resistance has often been connected with antisocial attitudes, destructiveness, reactionary or revolutionary ideologies, unusual and sudden explosions of violence, and emotional outbursts. However, we wish to add to this co…
Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: An Analytical Framework
Since James Scott introduced the concept of 'everyday resistance' in 1985, research has grown within partly overlapping fields. Existing studies utilize very different definitions, methodologies and understandings of 'everyday resistance', which makes a systematic development of the field difficult. In previous work, the authors have suggested a theoretical and definitional framework where everyday resistance is understood as a specific kind of r…
Dimensions of everyday resistance: The Palestinian Sumūd
This article applies our earlier proposed theoretical framework on everyday resistance in the case of Palestinian Sumūd (steadfastness) in relation to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Our original framework rests on the dimensions of: (I) repertoires of everyday resistance; (II) relationships of agents; as well as the (III) spatialization and (IV) temporalization of everyday resistance. Th…
Fighting with and Against the Time: The Japanese Environmental Movement's Queering of Time as Resistance
This article aims to add to the discussion on civil society, resistance, and environmental politics by departing from the concepts of affects, time, and temporality. In essence, the article suggests two things. Firstly, when theorizing civil society, we argue that we should depart from the idea that the present is not a singular, linear moment, but comprises affective relations to other times and people situated within these times. To support the…
Tony Milligan, Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law
Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law, Tony Milligan (London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).The book Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law, published in 2013 by
Recent Book
Recent Book." Journal of Palestine Studies, 44(2), pp. 72–73 Additional informationNotes on contributorsStellan VinthagenStellan Vinthagen is endowed chair in the study of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance and professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He participated in the 2011-2012 Freedom Flotilla with the Scandinavian organization Ship to Gaza Sweden. He is also editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies
Decolonizing Civil Resistance
Western scholars dominating the field generally suggest that civil resistance struggles involve public contention with unjust states to expand political rights and civil liberties. We argue that this perspective is an example of Eurocentric universalism, which has three blind spots: it tends to ignore struggles seeking to subvert rather than join the liberal world system, as well as coloniality's effects on nonviolent action, and emerging subjuga…
Sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower: Resisting what power with what resistance
This article links Foucaultian power forms with its corresponding resistance. If resistance is a reaction to power, then the characteristics of the power strategy/relation affect the kinds of resistance that subsequently prevail. Accordingly, it becomes interesting to discuss what kinds of resistance emanate from what kinds of power. We discuss this relationship between power and resistance by drawing on Foucault’s ‘triangle’: (I) sovereign power…
Exploring ‘irrational resistance’
This article will examine irrationality in relation to the concept of resistance. Is there such a thing as an irrational resistance? While one tendency has been to irrationalise the ‘other’ and their resistance in order to construct a subaltern identity position, within the social sciences, an opposing tendency can also be identified; there is a trend to try to rationalise what seems to be people’s irrational behaviours. In this article, however,…
Nonviolent Resistance and Culture
This article investigates what culture means for nonviolent resistance. While literature on nonviolence has had a tendency to look instrumentally at culture, this article suggests an intertwined relationship. Activists are themselves embedded in their own cultures, and there is no “outside culture.” The authors suggest an innovative model of three strategies for analyzing the cultural aspects of a nonviolent struggle: (1) occasionally borrowing e…
Framväxten av sociala rörelsers globala politik
The emergence of social movements’ global politicsGlobalization not only transforms capital, media and technology, but also creates conditions for global politics, beyond ”international politics”. New transnational public arenas emerge, where a broad range of actors articulate demands and interests.A globalized political infrastructure arise from the combination of the (1) internal transnational mobilization within two opposing global networks: m…
Rethinking Nonviolent Action and Contentious Politics: Political Cultures of Nonviolent Opposition in the Indian Independence Movement and Brazil's Landless Workers Movement
The emerging synthesis between nonviolent action and contentious politics studies has yielded important insights. Yet it also reproduces the dichotomy between politics and culture that continues to haunt both fields. Extending recent work by Jean-Pierre Reed and John Foran, our contribution introduces the political cultures of nonviolent opposition concept to forge a new synthesis, one that recognizes the politics of nonviolent culture and the cu…
Power as Subordination and Resistance as Disobedience: Non-violent Movements and the Management of Power
Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: An Analytical Framework
Since James Scott introduced the concept of 'everyday resistance' in 1985, research has grown within partly overlapping fields. Existing studies utilize very different definitions, methodologies and understandings of 'everyday resistance', which makes a systematic development of the field difficult. In previous work, the authors have suggested a theoretical and definitional framework where everyday resistance is understood as a specific kind of r…
Dispersed resistance: Unpacking the Spectrum and Properties of Glaring and Everyday Resistance
Revisiting James C. Scott's classification of forms of resistance, this paper argues that (hidden, subtle) everyday resistance is only one of many types of small-scale or individual resistance practices. We propose the concept of 'dispersed resistance', which might be 'everyday' and subtle, or loud and extraordinary. In addition, drawing on Foucault's works, we suggest at least two ways of conceptualizing dispersed resistance: as 'productive' res…
Defining and Analyzing “Resistance”: Possible Entrances to the Study of Subversive Practices
This article explores the meaning of “resistance” and suggests a new path for “resistance studies,” which is an emerging and interdisciplinary field of the social sciences that is still relatively fragmented and heterogeneous. Resistance has often been connected with antisocial attitudes, destructiveness, reactionary or revolutionary ideologies, unusual and sudden explosions of violence, and emotional outbursts. However, we wish to add to this co…
Sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower: Resisting what power with what resistance
This article links Foucaultian power forms with its corresponding resistance. If resistance is a reaction to power, then the characteristics of the power strategy/relation affect the kinds of resistance that subsequently prevail. Accordingly, it becomes interesting to discuss what kinds of resistance emanate from what kinds of power. We discuss this relationship between power and resistance by drawing on Foucault’s ‘triangle’: (I) sovereign power…
How resistance encourages resistance: Theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’
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 con…
The ABC of resistance: Towards a New Analytical Framework
Two significant developments – (1) the rapidly changing world order, and (2) significant gaps in current social science scholarship – call for a further exploration of resistance theories. In this paper, we identify some of the gaps and inconsistencies within the current bulk of research, and seek to contribute to the understanding of resistance, its applications and complexity. In short, this paper discusses three interacting and supporting form…
Decolonizing Civil Resistance
Western scholars dominating the field generally suggest that civil resistance struggles involve public contention with unjust states to expand political rights and civil liberties. We argue that this perspective is an example of Eurocentric universalism, which has three blind spots: it tends to ignore struggles seeking to subvert rather than join the liberal world system, as well as coloniality's effects on nonviolent action, and emerging subjuga…
Exploring ‘irrational resistance’
This article will examine irrationality in relation to the concept of resistance. Is there such a thing as an irrational resistance? While one tendency has been to irrationalise the ‘other’ and their resistance in order to construct a subaltern identity position, within the social sciences, an opposing tendency can also be identified; there is a trend to try to rationalise what seems to be people’s irrational behaviours. In this article, however,…
Dimensions of everyday resistance: The Palestinian Sumūd
This article applies our earlier proposed theoretical framework on everyday resistance in the case of Palestinian Sumūd (steadfastness) in relation to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Our original framework rests on the dimensions of: (I) repertoires of everyday resistance; (II) relationships of agents; as well as the (III) spatialization and (IV) temporalization of everyday resistance. Th…
Resisting resettlement in Rwanda: Rethinking Dichotomies of "Survival"/"Resistance" and "Dominance"/"Subordination
This article problematizes the dichotomies between "survival" and "resistance," and between "dominance" and "subordination." Based on fieldwork in Rwanda among peasants who experienced the country's large-scale villagization program, the article shows how some poor farmers – motivated by survival needs – negotiate the reform pressures in a way that amounts to "everyday resistance," while the local reform implementers – as a result of their "in-be…
The visible effects of ‘invisible politics’: ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ and Possible Outcomes
We evaluate existing case studies of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ and explore the possibilities for a systematic research on its political impacts. Due to its elusive nature, the impact of this less visible resistance has rarely been studied. We only find single case studies that make references to varied outcomes in a particular context. Main theorists within the field do suggest a loose hypothesis of ‘cumulative’ effects in which (thousands o…
Fighting with and Against the Time: The Japanese Environmental Movement's Queering of Time as Resistance
This article aims to add to the discussion on civil society, resistance, and environmental politics by departing from the concepts of affects, time, and temporality. In essence, the article suggests two things. Firstly, when theorizing civil society, we argue that we should depart from the idea that the present is not a singular, linear moment, but comprises affective relations to other times and people situated within these times. To support the…
Nonviolent Resistance and Culture
This article investigates what culture means for nonviolent resistance. While literature on nonviolence has had a tendency to look instrumentally at culture, this article suggests an intertwined relationship. Activists are themselves embedded in their own cultures, and there is no “outside culture.” The authors suggest an innovative model of three strategies for analyzing the cultural aspects of a nonviolent struggle: (1) occasionally borrowing e…
Power as Subordination and Resistance as Disobedience: Non-violent Movements and the Management of Power
Power as Subordination and Resistance as Disobedience: Non-violent Movements and the Management of Power
Rethinking Nonviolent Action and Contentious Politics: Political Cultures of Nonviolent Opposition in the Indian Independence Movement and Brazil's Landless Workers Movement
The emerging synthesis between nonviolent action and contentious politics studies has yielded important insights. Yet it also reproduces the dichotomy between politics and culture that continues to haunt both fields. Extending recent work by Jean-Pierre Reed and John Foran, our contribution introduces the political cultures of nonviolent opposition concept to forge a new synthesis, one that recognizes the politics of nonviolent culture and the cu…
Framväxten av sociala rörelsers globala politik
The emergence of social movements’ global politicsGlobalization not only transforms capital, media and technology, but also creates conditions for global politics, beyond ”international politics”. New transnational public arenas emerge, where a broad range of actors articulate demands and interests.A globalized political infrastructure arise from the combination of the (1) internal transnational mobilization within two opposing global networks: m…
Nonviolent Resistance and Culture
This article investigates what culture means for nonviolent resistance. While literature on nonviolence has had a tendency to look instrumentally at culture, this article suggests an intertwined relationship. Activists are themselves embedded in their own cultures, and there is no “outside culture.” The authors suggest an innovative model of three strategies for analyzing the cultural aspects of a nonviolent struggle: (1) occasionally borrowing e…
Exploring ‘irrational resistance’
This article will examine irrationality in relation to the concept of resistance. Is there such a thing as an irrational resistance? While one tendency has been to irrationalise the ‘other’ and their resistance in order to construct a subaltern identity position, within the social sciences, an opposing tendency can also be identified; there is a trend to try to rationalise what seems to be people’s irrational behaviours. In this article, however,…
Sovereign power, disciplinary power and biopower: Resisting what power with what resistance
This article links Foucaultian power forms with its corresponding resistance. If resistance is a reaction to power, then the characteristics of the power strategy/relation affect the kinds of resistance that subsequently prevail. Accordingly, it becomes interesting to discuss what kinds of resistance emanate from what kinds of power. We discuss this relationship between power and resistance by drawing on Foucault’s ‘triangle’: (I) sovereign power…
Dimensions of everyday resistance: The Palestinian Sumūd
This article applies our earlier proposed theoretical framework on everyday resistance in the case of Palestinian Sumūd (steadfastness) in relation to the Israeli-occupied Palestinian territories and the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon. Our original framework rests on the dimensions of: (I) repertoires of everyday resistance; (II) relationships of agents; as well as the (III) spatialization and (IV) temporalization of everyday resistance. Th…
Fighting with and Against the Time: The Japanese Environmental Movement's Queering of Time as Resistance
This article aims to add to the discussion on civil society, resistance, and environmental politics by departing from the concepts of affects, time, and temporality. In essence, the article suggests two things. Firstly, when theorizing civil society, we argue that we should depart from the idea that the present is not a singular, linear moment, but comprises affective relations to other times and people situated within these times. To support the…
Tony Milligan, Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law
Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law, Tony Milligan (London, UK: Bloomsbury Academic, 2013).The book Civil Disobedience: Protest, Justification, and the Law, published in 2013 by
Recent Book
Recent Book." Journal of Palestine Studies, 44(2), pp. 72–73 Additional informationNotes on contributorsStellan VinthagenStellan Vinthagen is endowed chair in the study of nonviolent direct action and civil resistance and professor of sociology at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. He participated in the 2011-2012 Freedom Flotilla with the Scandinavian organization Ship to Gaza Sweden. He is also editor of the Journal of Resistance Studies
Decolonizing Civil Resistance
Western scholars dominating the field generally suggest that civil resistance struggles involve public contention with unjust states to expand political rights and civil liberties. We argue that this perspective is an example of Eurocentric universalism, which has three blind spots: it tends to ignore struggles seeking to subvert rather than join the liberal world system, as well as coloniality's effects on nonviolent action, and emerging subjuga…
Defining and Analyzing “Resistance”: Possible Entrances to the Study of Subversive Practices
This article explores the meaning of “resistance” and suggests a new path for “resistance studies,” which is an emerging and interdisciplinary field of the social sciences that is still relatively fragmented and heterogeneous. Resistance has often been connected with antisocial attitudes, destructiveness, reactionary or revolutionary ideologies, unusual and sudden explosions of violence, and emotional outbursts. However, we wish to add to this co…
Dimensions of Everyday Resistance: An Analytical Framework
Since James Scott introduced the concept of 'everyday resistance' in 1985, research has grown within partly overlapping fields. Existing studies utilize very different definitions, methodologies and understandings of 'everyday resistance', which makes a systematic development of the field difficult. In previous work, the authors have suggested a theoretical and definitional framework where everyday resistance is understood as a specific kind of r…
Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice
How resistance encourages resistance: Theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’
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 con…
Researching Resistance and Social Change: A Critical Approach to Theory and Practice
Resisting resettlement in Rwanda: Rethinking Dichotomies of "Survival"/"Resistance" and "Dominance"/"Subordination
This article problematizes the dichotomies between "survival" and "resistance," and between "dominance" and "subordination." Based on fieldwork in Rwanda among peasants who experienced the country's large-scale villagization program, the article shows how some poor farmers – motivated by survival needs – negotiate the reform pressures in a way that amounts to "everyday resistance," while the local reform implementers – as a result of their "in-be…
Dispersed resistance: Unpacking the Spectrum and Properties of Glaring and Everyday Resistance
Revisiting James C. Scott's classification of forms of resistance, this paper argues that (hidden, subtle) everyday resistance is only one of many types of small-scale or individual resistance practices. We propose the concept of 'dispersed resistance', which might be 'everyday' and subtle, or loud and extraordinary. In addition, drawing on Foucault's works, we suggest at least two ways of conceptualizing dispersed resistance: as 'productive' res…
Conceptualizing ‘Everyday Resistance’: A Transdisciplinary Approach
Everyday resistance is about the many ways people undermine power and domination through their routine and everyday actions. Unlike open rebellions or demonstrations, it is typically hidden, not politically articulated, and often ingenious. But because of its disguised nature, it is often poorly understood as a form of politics and its potential underestimated. Conceptualizing 'Everyday Resistance' presents an analytical framework and theoretical…
The visible effects of ‘invisible politics’: ‘Everyday Forms of Resistance’ and Possible Outcomes
We evaluate existing case studies of ‘everyday forms of resistance’ and explore the possibilities for a systematic research on its political impacts. Due to its elusive nature, the impact of this less visible resistance has rarely been studied. We only find single case studies that make references to varied outcomes in a particular context. Main theorists within the field do suggest a loose hypothesis of ‘cumulative’ effects in which (thousands o…
The ABC of resistance: Towards a New Analytical Framework
Two significant developments – (1) the rapidly changing world order, and (2) significant gaps in current social science scholarship – call for a further exploration of resistance theories. In this paper, we identify some of the gaps and inconsistencies within the current bulk of research, and seek to contribute to the understanding of resistance, its applications and complexity. In short, this paper discusses three interacting and supporting form…
Sociology (17 works) · Political science (14 works) · Law (13 works) · Resistance (ecology (13 works) · Law (12 works) · Epistemology (11 works) · Politics (11 works) · Philosophy (8 works) · Ecology (7 works) · Biology (6 works)