Researching Resistance and Social Change

This is an important book that fills a needed hole in our understandings of power and resistance. One of its strengths is the consistent focus on how resistance itself is productive of further resistance. I would recommend it to advanced undergraduate classes in globalization because often those classes only tell students about the oppressive and destructive aspects of global power relations; students come out of those classes depressed and cynical. This book is a needed corrective. Upper division political science and sociology classes on social change could use this book as required reading. -- Kathy Ferguson, Department of Political Science, University of Hawai'i In an era of new authoritarianism and popular resistance it is hardly possible for this text to be timelier. Long overdue, this well-crafted text provides some coherence, most importantly a sophisticated theoretical integrity and congruity, to the (rather) far-flung field of what might be fruitfully understood as resistance studies. Indispensable, invigorating, and inspirational, this ambitious and engaging work limns out a field in progress, opening up a critical conversation about where we are going and how. At a time and place where resistance is bandied about with ample recognition but little attention to detail, this is a vital project. -- Eric Selbin, Professor of Political Science and Holder of the Lucy King Brown Chair, Southwestern University

Mikael Baaz is Associate Professor in Peace and Conflict Studies and a Senior Lecturer in International Law at the School of Business, Economics and Law, the University of Gothenburg. Mona Lilja is a Professor in Sociology at Karlstad University. Stellan Vinthagen is Endowed Chair in the Study of Nonviolent Direct Action and Civil Resistance and Professor of Sociology, University of Massachusetts Amherst.

1. Introduction: Resistance Studies as an Academic Pursuit / 2. Defining and Categorising "Resistance" / 3. Sovereign Power, Disciplinary power and Biopower: Resisting what Power with what Resistance / 4. How Resistance Encourages Resistance: Theorising the Nexus between Power, "Organised Resistance" and "Everyday Resistance" / 5. Exploring "Irrational" Resistance /6. Affects and Resistance Studies /. Fighting with and against the Time: The "Queering" of Time as Resistance /8. Moral Compulsions, Everyday Resistance and Ethical Research /9. The Ethical Aspects of the "Strategy of Legal Rupture" as Resistance / 10. Conclusion