Rethinking Subaltern Resistance

Abstract

This special issue seeks to rethink “resistance” as a critical social science concept in the light of a range of critiques since the 1980s. The five articles in this issue draw their empirical materials from contemporary India, but their arguments have significant implications for those working on other parts of Asia and the world. The articles acknowledge the inherent ambiguities and ambivalences of subaltern resistance in the face of hegemonic social formations, yet, shorn of exoticising and homogenising tendencies, resistance can be reconceptualised as the negotiation rather than negation of social power. Such a reconceptualisation is useful to study a wide range of contentious politics from foot-dragging through protests to social revolutions under a single analytic umbrella. Resistance, in this sense, ought to be recognised as a vital part of a critical realist ontology of society, which helps us understand and critique existing structures of social domination in order to pursue emancipatory possibilities via the generation of social scientific knowledge.     

Law and Larai: The (De)Judicialisation of Subaltern Resistance in West Bengal

Abstract

This article examines the dynamics of judicialisation and dejudicialisation of subaltern resistance in the context of a prolonged anti-land acquisition struggle in Singur in the Indian state of West Bengal. Taking its point of departure in a detailed, chronological ethnographic account of the Singur movement and its shifting engagement with the language and institutions of law, the article demonstrates how the local resistance to a land acquisition for the purpose of setting up a new automobile factory oscillated strategically back and forth between a multitude of sites of contestation. This strategic oscillation was, in turn, highly sensitive to the broader context in which the movement was carried out, and to the shifting terrain of the local and regional political landscape in particular. The attractiveness of invoking the language and institutions of law as part of their struggle therefore significantly depended on the attractiveness of other modalities of resistance at a given moment. In conclusion, the article uses the Singur case to critically interrogate and rethink the seminal work of Partha Chatterjee on political society and the politics of the governed in post-colonial India.     

The Possibility of Liminal Colonial Subjecthood: Yayutz Bleyh and the Search for Subaltern Histories in the Japanese Empire

ABSTRACT

This article examines whether writing histories of colonial subjects is possible. Traditional colonial histories subsume the colonial subject's individual history under a larger narrative of subjugation, which often does not allow room for people to exist outside the dichotomized role of collaborator/resister. This approach has left a gap in the scholarship for histories of colonial subjects whose lives do not easily fit either category. This article addresses this gap by detailing the life of Yayutz Bleyh, an Atayal woman who became one of the most important participants in the Japanese colonial administration of Aboriginal Affairs in Taiwan. For over six years, the author gathered fragmented pieces of information regarding Yayutz from a multitude of sources – visuals, as well as oral and written materials from inside and outside the colonial archive – in order to sketch the contours of an extraordinary woman and her life. Through the process of filtering these disparate sources, it was the silences regarding certain issues and the discrepancies that emerged among sources that proved to be the most revealing about Yayutz as someone who straddled both the world of the colonizer and the colonized.     

A Landlord's Notice to Quit: The May 2012 Municipal Elections in Italy

This article explores the significance of the local elections of May 2012 for the general direction of change in Italian politics. The forces of the centre-right were deserted en masse but without those of the centre-left effectively capitalising on the discontent, which was, instead, expressed by the spectacular advance of the ‘non-party’, the almost completely novel Five-Star Movement. As the last major contest on the political agenda before the next general election due in no more than a year, the May outcome revealed just how difficult it was likely to be for either of the two coalitions to obtain a clear victory on that occasion. The article discusses the extent and the nature of these difficulties – deriving from voters' clear rejection of ‘politics as usual’ – by analysing the run-up, the campaign, the outcome and the aftermath of the May elections.     

'This is the Time to Get in Front': Changing Roles and Opportunities for Women in Liberia

Most research on women in war focuses on female losses. Thisarticle demonstrates that wars may also bring gains. The scopeof political and economic roles that Liberian women performtoday appears to be larger than before the war. Both individuallyand collectively, certain women have gainfully used openingsthe war provided them. The article discusses the historicityof Liberian gender roles, examining the social subgroups ofpoliticians, businesswomen, women's organizations, employees,and school girls. Changes have also been fostered by the internationalpeace-building and development business. Although the realizationof female ambitions seems to be constrained by various institutionaland economic factors, Liberia may harbour a unique potentialfor sustainable shifts in gender roles.     

“依视路杯”全国法语文学翻译竞赛启事

为发现、培养和奖掖更多的法语翻译新人,推动中国法语教学和文学翻译事业的健康发展和繁荣,促进中法文化交流,全国法语教学研究会、南京大学法语系和上海依视路光学有限公司决定联合举办依视路杯全国法语文学翻译竞赛,具体参赛规则如下:     

帝国研究视角下的苏联解体研究

苏联的建立与演进,似乎都与"帝国"有复杂的关联性。其前身——俄罗斯帝国是典型的陆上帝国。苏联成立后坚持反帝立场,但之后逐渐演变成为一个"社会帝国主义"国家。其标志就是形成了核心—边缘的帝国结构体系,以苏联统治中枢莫斯科及俄罗斯为核心,向外形成了三层边缘地带,其中第一层是苏联的加盟共和国,第二层是中东欧华约成员国,第三层是在亚洲和美洲的经互会成员国。苏联解体实际上是"帝国终结"历史的一个组成部分,是一次迟来的非殖民化,也是人类历史发展的自然进程。这方面的具体原因至少有以下三个:其一,苏联领导人对当时局势的认识及判断和采取的对策及政策;其二,边缘地区民族主义产生了重要的动员和发动作用;最后,"帝国的负担"成为难以承受的现实负担。     

日本的中部欧亚研究:俄罗斯研究与东方研究的紧密结合

19世纪后期,日本学者把东亚历史研究与西亚历史研究紧密结合起来,研究中亚注重使用俄语、突厥语资料.苏联戈尔巴乔夫经济改革时期的民族问题与苏联解体后中亚地区独立国家的涌现,引起了日本学者、学生及普通百姓的极大关注.20世纪90年代后,日本的现代中亚研究得到迅速发展.在研究方式、研究范围、学科设置、研究方法等方面体现出了不同的特点.     

Embeddedness and Restructuring: Case Studies from Singapore

Free market ideology has continued its hegemonic reign notwithstanding considerable opposition. Under capitalism, the relationship between the political and economic realms is intricate. This inquiry on corporate restructuring in Singapore between the late 1990s and the early 2000s scrutinizes how a dominant state collaborated with the multinational corporations to reconstitute their accumulation regimes to outlast the business cycles. Based on six cases, the findings underscore the critical role of the state on the subject of restructuring. The peculiar configuration of the relations between the state and labour in Singapore shaped how they negotiated the restructuring process with the companies. While those involved reckoned that training, research and technology were pivotal, the foregoing were not the panacea that optimistic consultants had made them out to be. The interactions among capital, labour and the state remained the underpinnings of solutions.     

中国东南亚研究现状:制度化阐释

本文认为,制度性因素对于中国的国际问题研究起到了决定性作用。而政府需求、中国与东盟的相互依赖以及大众传媒在中国的兴起则是影响中国东南亚研究的三个主要因素。这些因素提升了东南亚研究在中国的地位,促使东南亚研究以经济与政治(包括安全)为重点领域。但是另一方面,这三个因素却使中国的东南亚研究面临着学术贡献与政府需求、学术贡献与大众需求之间的艰难平衡,并有可能使中国的东南亚研究将自身置于满足政府和大众短期需求、损害长期能力建设的困境之中。因此,本文认为需要从机制的角度来考虑如何矫正中国东南亚研究中的建设与发展问题。     

Studies in War-time Organisation: (5) AFLOC

War-emergency is one of the few occasions when the problemsof Africa can be treated as a whole, without too much regardfor national sovereignties or vested interests. The author ofthis article was put in charge of trans-African transport projectsat a time when existing supply routes to the Middle East werevery seriously threatened. His remarks have more than a merelyhistorical interest.     

Campaigning in a Direct Democracy: Three Case Studies

This research note focuses on Switzerland's relationship with the EU, and the role direct democracy plays in this relationship. Specifically, the research question asked is whether behaviour on the part of the campaigners can be understood through the lens of Riker's so‐called dominance principle: “when one side successfully wins the argument on an issue, the other side ceases to discuss it” (Riker 1993: 81). One corollary of the dominance principle is that there will tend to be a concentration on a smaller and smaller number of arguments over the course of a campaign, because campaigners are induced to focus on a small subset of issues, their “winning issues”. On the basis of a data set consisting of campaign advertisements appearing in Swiss newspapers in the four‐week periods before the EU‐related 1992, 2000 and 2001 votes, the analysis actually shows little evidence of any concentration of arguments. The research note concludes by considering some implication of this for Swiss direct democracy.