How resistance encourages resistance theorizing the nexus between power Organised Resistance and Everyday Resistance

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How resistance encourages resistance: theorizing
the nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’
and ‘Everyday Resistance’
Mona Lilja, Mikael Baaz, Michael Schulz & Stellan Vinthagen
To cite this article: Mona Lilja, Mikael Baaz, Michael Schulz & Stellan Vinthagen (2017)
How resistance encourages resistance: theorizing the nexus between power, ‘Organised
Resistance’ and ‘Everyday Resistance’, Journal of Political Power, 10:1, 40-54, DOI:
10.1080/2158379X.2017.1286084
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2017.1286084
Published online: 01 Mar 2017.
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JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER, 2017
VOL. 10, NO. 1, 4054
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2017.1286084
How resistance encourages resistance: theorizing the
nexus between power, ‘Organised Resistance’ and ‘Everyday
Resistance’
Mona Liljaa,b, Mikael Baazc, Michael Schulzb and Stellan Vinthagend,e
aDepartment of Social and Psychological Studies/Sociology, Karlstad University, Karlstad, Sweden; bSchool
of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; cDepartment of Law, University of
Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden; dDepartment of Sociology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA,
USA; eDepartment of Sociology and Work Science, University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden
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 dierent
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-
reexivity’ and ‘techniques of the self’.
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:
e hegemonic attitude of academia is that of resistance – all the poetics of the dispersed mar-
ginal 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 eectively 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 shiing forms of resistance in general and how acts of
everyday resistance entangle with more organized and sometimes mass-based resistance
KEYWORDS
Resistance; power;
subordination; self-
reflexivity; Cambodia
© 2017 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
CONTACT Mona Lilja mona.lilja@kau.se
ARTICLE HISTORY
Received 18 January 2017
Accepted20 January 2017

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 41
activities in particular. In order to better understand resistance as practice, such entangle-
ments need to be carefully analysed by taking into consideration the connections between
technologies of power and various practices of resistance. For a more coherent understand-
ing, modalities of power and resistance should, in addition, be theorized in relation to the
concepts of ‘agency’, ‘self-reexivity’ 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 bet-
ter theoretical tools for analysing and understanding the inter-linkage between dierent
resistance practices, which by extension, promotes social change.
For the purpose of our argument, we have identied two major trajectories in the scholarly
literature on resistance. e rst is a group of scholars that relies on ethnographic inquiries,
emphasizing the multifarious ways that dierent resistance practices are enacted. ese
scholars argue that there exist dierent 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 (oen implicitly) certain conceptualizations of
power, which oen 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 dierent regards correspond to this curriculum.
Beside this rst trajectory, it is also possible to speak about a body of scholarship that is
advocated by, among others, Saba Mahmood. is 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 tradi-
tions 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 dierent 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 oen 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-govern-
mental 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). e 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 dicult transitional
justice process (See further Baaz 2015a, 2015b; cf. Baaz 2015c).

42 M. LILJA ET AL.
e 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 dierent way, we
will position the paper in relation to previous research and identify the gap in the existing
literature that it intends to ll. is puts our analysis on organized and everyday resistance
in Cambodia in a scholarly context. Aer 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 nal section, our
ndings and some reective 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 eld 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 the – are tactics that they use in order to both survive and undermine repres-
sive 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. ese two forms of
resistance relate to three forms of domination – (i) material; (ii) status; and, (iii) ideologi-
cal – 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 prole, undisclosed or ‘infra-politics’) as everyday resistance,
namely: (4) direct resistance by disguised resisters against material domination; (5) hid-
den 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. e 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 exer-
cised. ose that claim that ‘real resistance’ is organized, principled and has revolutionary
implications, entirely overlook the role of power relations, which limit the dierent 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).

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 43
In addition to this, Scott also advances some interesting ideas regarding the interaction
between dierent forms of resistance. e practice of ‘withdrawal’, according to Scott, might
precede ‘everyday resistance’, riots, social movements and political parties, which are the
other forms of acknowledged resistance. is 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 con-
tributed to recovering the ird 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 shi 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 insucient to account for the dynamic interactions and on-going activities
of the urban poor in the “ird World”’. eir 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 benets of
the dominant groups (Bayat 1997a, pp. 2–6, 12, 1997b, 1997c, 2000, 2009).
All things considered, Bayat oers a theory of resistance that not only moves beyond
Scott’s but also diers from the majority of existing theories on social movements. By con-
clusion, he argues that what we see is a dierent kind of political activism when it is done
by the ‘ordinary’ people in ird World cities; or rather the poor and ‘informal’ people
that live in unauthorized urban neighbourhoods and engage in the unocial economy:
the street vendors, the squatters, unemployed or underemployed. eir 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 uid categories of marginalized and informal groups is exible and adapts
to circumstances, all with the purpose of creating a more self-regulated and dignied 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,
oen not even knowing one another in advance, and despite normally competing against
one another on the street market. e threat of the power elite against their small subsist-
ence activity brings them together as a result of ‘passive networks’ of scattered individuals
who live in a similar position in a shared public space. ese passive networks become
activated when they need to make public and collective defensive eorts and articulate

44 M. LILJA ET AL.
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 prob-
lems, 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 uid 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, atom-
ized 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. eir activities are not carried out as conscious political acts; rather it is
the force of necessity to survive and live a dignied life that drives them. Still, they oen
deliberately avoid collective eort, large-scale operations, commotion and publicity. At
times squatters, for instance, prevent others from joining them in specic 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. is 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).
e above literature review displays how everyday resistance and organized resistance
might be linked to each other according to two alternative dynamics. ere 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). is
form of dynamics is so far only indicated but remains largely unexplored within the eld
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 col-
lectively organized resistance (sudden large mobilizations in which ‘passive networks’ are
temporarily activated) might be utilized in dierent times and spaces, depending on what
is feasible, as a reaction to the type of repression applied against the resistance (Bayat). e
expression of resistance is then due to the specic situation at hand and might prevail as both
hidden and public, both individual and collective, both informal and (sometimes) formally
organized and so on. is second type of resistance dynamics (oscillation) is theoretically
developed and empirically explored among the urban poor in ird 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 dierent 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 dierent forms
of organized resistance oen become the very origin for more subtle forms of everyday

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 45
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 dierent 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 interac-
tion of various forms of resistance in dierent spaces and how they encourage one another.
Resistance, relations of subordination and self-reexivity
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). Dierent forms of resist-
ance 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 aect 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 aect the
pattern of an outcome against the desires of other actors (Dahl in Kabeer 1994, pp. 224–229,
Lukes 1974, p. 13). is 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 eective
in this case. Resistance to ‘disciplinary forms of power’, on the other hand, materializes as
practices that work to negotiate dierent 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 dierent forms of power that shape distinct articulations of resistance,
but paradoxically enough, resistance also reinforces and/or creates new power relations.
ereby, power and resistance can sometimes exist in a mutually constitutive relationship.
In addition, the entanglement of power and resistance involves those engaged in dierent
power relations. e dichotomizing of resisters and dominators in fact ignores that there
are dierent systems of hierarchy that interact. erefore, individuals can be simultane-
ously 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 ineective in certain contexts can be challenging
and subversive in others, and vice versa.
e forthcoming discussion departs from an analytical framework that separates organ-
ized and everyday resistance. Dierently put, we have chosen to distinguish between two
‘ideal types’ of resistance: ‘everyday resistance’ and ‘organised resistance’ (Scott 1989,

46 M. LILJA ET AL.
p. 34). In reality these ‘pure’ forms of resistance oen 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). is 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 understand-
ing of the concept of everyday resistance diers from Scott’s in at least two regards. Firstly,
in contrast to Scott, we distinguish everyday resistance as a practice that is oen, 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 dierent forms of power, such as decision-mak
-
ing 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.
is 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 con-
text 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,
specic 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 obli-
gations. Whether it is divine law, rational rule or cosmological order, the individual might

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 47
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). is is related to operations
that one performs on oneself in order to become an ethical subject. is 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-reexivity; 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
dierent resisting organizations has allowed our respondents to reect upon themselves,
their power relations, and thereaer to formulate ethical considerations and various artic-
ulations of resistance. Put dierently, 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. is,
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-reection 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 dierent sites in Cambodia, in which
both, in one way or another, deal with GBV. In 2009 and 2010, we made in-depth inter-
views with dierent representatives of four NGOs who work against GBV. e selection
of the NGOs was done through ‘snowballing’ and includes the following organizations:
(a) e Cambodian Women’s Crisis Centre (CWCC); (b) Cambodian Men’s Network (CMN);
(c) Gender and Development (GAD); and (d) the Women’s Rights Oce (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 (oen 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). ese
interviews constitute the rst 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. e positions of the respondents
who were interviewed varied; some were professionally involved in the court proceedings
(investigating judges, judges, prosecutors, lawyers, investigators, other court ocials, etc.);
others were witnesses, victims and civil parties (NGOs included). In total, 33 interviews

48 M. LILJA ET AL.
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. e 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.
Aer 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, dierent 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. e interviews made with representatives
for some of these local organizations, display how they practice resistance against violent
gender norms within the men’s groups. e male trainers in the men’s groups attempted to
shake the cultural order; that is, dierent 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. e
male trainers, in this regard, prevail as agents of resistance; carrying out resistance on behalf
of the Cambodian women. is can be seen as organized resistance, according to the above
denitions. e 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
dierent processes in the men’s groups set o dierent 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 diculties 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 oer 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 rst. Cambodian women
do not show lust, she said. (Interview, trainer, GAD, Phnom Penh, July 2009)
e 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: ‘en, when my wife told me she wanted to have sex I was lled with jealousy.
I was not used to this’. e 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. e 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. e two quotes also show how, by taking part in the programs

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 49
of civil-society-based organizations in Cambodia, the man has been inspired to negotiate
(on an individual level) the subject positions that he is oered by performing a subversive
identity. us, 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.
is is due to practices of self-reection, which become the very base for an individual’s
decision to practice everyday resistance. Inspired by Mahmood, we suggest that the trainer’s
self-reections, and moral and ethical reections in regard to these discourses, should be
understood as the starting point for challenging his own ‘doings’ in relation to gender. us,
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 dierent level, there is a certain convergence with Scott, who insists
upon the signicance 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 suer
hegemonic domination or from false consciousness. To summarize, organized resistance
encourages everyday resistance, and reexivity.
Constructing ‘Forced Marriage’ in Cambodia
e same pattern as in the case of local civil-society-based resistance against violent mas-
culinities 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 dicult
to address. One reason for the diculties 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. ey 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)
e 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 aair’. As a social insti-
tution, 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. e parents
of the prospective couple played a directing role, not only in selecting the candidates but
also in conducting dierent 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 rela-
tions between dierent families, as well as the family being responsible for arranging mar-
riages. 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.

50 M. LILJA ET AL.
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). e 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 mar-
riage’ 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 land-
mark achievement by the SCSL, various transnational civil-society agents have supported
local civil-society in its eorts to include GBV issues, not at least the crime of forced mar-
riage, on the ECCC agenda (UN/S/RES/1325).
e re-categorization of ‘arranged marriages’ into ‘forced marriages’ by dierent organ-
izations, 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
sta between the ECCC and the Phnom Penh city centre], the highest legal ocer 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 ghting GBV
crimes have been forced to regure 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. ey went to our mother to ask for her advice.
She told them to pretend to be ill. She put some mud behind their ears. at is a disease here.
But the mud fell o aer a while. en they had to get married. But my sisters refused to
get married that day. e others who refused to accept a forced marriage ran into the forest.
However, my sisters ran to our parents. en the Khmer Rouge came and killed them with
machetes in front of my parents. (Interview, victim, Phnom Penh, June 2010)
ese 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).
e decision to bear witness to GBV crimes does not seem to emanate from the urge
for personal revenge or prot, but many expressed a desire to establish their memories as a

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 51
part of the (ocial) Cambodian history. One witness said: ‘I want to take part in the court
and tell my story. at 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’. e aim of displaying the
‘truths’ reects the moral considerations, self-reection 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. us,
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 mar-
riage’ but tell another ‘truth’. In this, they are being supported by local NGOs but still being
opposed or rejected by, for example, many court ocials (Lilja 2013). In order to understand
this resistance we should consider the relationship between self-reexivity, dierent 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. e 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 oered to or imposed on them (…)’ (Barnes and
Prior 2009, p. 3).
Overall, civil-society-based agents have contributed to a situation where women wit-
nesses carry out resistance on an individual level by bearing witness. us, the organizations
have provided the respondents with interpretations, which later have become the basis
for reections and an individual everyday resistance. ereby, 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
e 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. e eld 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. is 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

52 M. LILJA ET AL.
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 dierent forms of resistance and power should be acknowledged and
further researched. is analysis is enabled by a broadened denition 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-reection
might, then, contribute to our understandings of how dierent forms of resistance feed each
other. us, to understand how resistance feeds resistance we must take a detour around
the concepts of subjects, subjectivities, self-reection and reexivity.
Resistance inspires, provokes, generates, encourages or eventually discourages resistance;
depending on contextual factors and other circumstances. e 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.
is may be due to the frustrating results of the rst 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.
Acknowledgements
e authors gratefully acknowledge the nancial support of the Swedish Research Council, which
has allowed us to undertake research in a programme titled ‘Globalization of Resistance: Inuences
on Democracy Advocators in Civil Society in the South’, from 2011 to 2015 (project no. 2010-2298).
is article is an integral part of this wider research programme.
Disclosure statement
No potential conict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
is work was nancially supported by the Swedish Research Council [project no. 2010-2298].
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 conict studies and a senior lecturer in interna-
tional law. Some of his latest are published in: International Studies Review, Asian Politics and Polity,

JOURNAL OF POLITICAL POWER 53
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 eory of Nonviolent Action: How Civil
Resistance Works (Zed Books, 2015).
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