This paper will explore the potential for resistance for poor rural peasant communities in post-colonial states. Given their political marginalization and often conflicting interests with hegemonic capitalist ideologies in contemporary development policy, how might these communities be able to resist hegemonic power structures to preserve their livelihoods? James C. Scott (1985) explores this question in depth, but fails to connect the everyday forms of resistance of the poor in Sedaka to the broader power relations of the state and the international community. While the actions of the poor in Sedaka may have some impact on class relations within the village, how effective are these resistance strategies on the broader power structures of the state and international actors that no doubt influence the actions of the rich in Sedaka? In order to explore this question, I will examine Scott’s case study in conversation with theories of power and resistance from Gaventa (1980), Hirschman (1970), and Thompson (1963), and a discussion of Antonio Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony presented by Lears (1985). In this way, I will clarify and examine the ways in which broader hegemonic power structures restrict the opportunities for resistance in these communities before identifying some of the avenues through which poor rural peasant communities can effectively resist dominant power and contribute to the decision-making process at the state level.
Structural Change
Scott (1985) presents a thick, rich description of the change in social and class relations that occurred in Sedaka. Malaysia, between 1974 and 1979 as the “green revolution” altered the balance in control over the means of production for rural paddy farmers and wage laborers. While he focuses on the changes that occur mainly at the village level, he also hints at the economic changes that were occurring globally, as agricultural industrialization promised to feed the world through hybrid seeds, agrochemical inputs, mechanization, and mass production and distribution. This revolution was promoted by developed countries, who engineered the technology, for adoption by developing countries, whose economies were still largely agriculture-based. Thus, at the international level one can identify a shift in the global hegemonic economic ideology toward agricultural industrialization. Since the Malaysian state is a relatively less powerful actor at the international level, it is likely that the adoption of green revolution technologies at the state level was influenced by restrictive conditions in the international economy and pressure or incentives from more powerful states to conform to shifting trends in the international economy. In turn, the Malaysian state then utilized its influence over owners and producers, such as the paddy farmers in Sedaka, to adopt the new technology in order to remain competitive in the international economy.
Scott (1985) describes how the state financed widespread irrigation in the countryside in the early 1970s, which allowed for planting during the dry season, essentially doubling Malaysia’s rice production and increasing rice exports. With paddy farmers producing twice as much rice each year, the majority were able to provide for the needs of their family while also selling the surplus to the state for export. Although the irrigation effort increased income and food supplies for peasants across the state, it was also likely a response to the hegemonic economic pressures to industrialize agricultural production and increase the supply of rice in the international economy, thus decreasing the price of rice imports for non-rice producing (aka developed) countries. In addition, the state also gained control over the water allocation for irrigated paddy land, which shifted the power from the peasant and their ability to adapt to changing weather patterns, to the state and their ability to decide the time, location, and amount of water flow during the dry season. Thus, although beneficial to peasants economically, the irrigation system siphoned power from the peasant to the state, and from the state to more powerful international actors in the shift toward agricultural industrialization.
As the state increased its power over agricultural industrialization processes, political elites struggled to gain and maintain influence over state resources through the electoral and party system. While Scott (1985) does not elaborate on the political history in Malaysia, he hints at the increased power of the ruling UMNO party and their effort to control agricultural production through clientelistic and patron relationships between the party and peasant elites. In order to maintain political stability during industrialization, the government and ruling party distributed privileged positions, credit, and subsidies through party channels to supportive, often already wealthy, paddy farmers, while also coopting poorer farmers through the promise of residual benefits. Although political affiliations in Sedaka often followed traditional family factions, before industrialization party politics were generally external from village-level social relations. However, with its increasing influence on local resources and livelihoods, state-level politics have come to dominate social unity at the village-level. Thus, the industrialization process has coincided with an increase in political power of the ruling party through the increased dependence of peasants on the state for resources, and has replaced village loyalty and social unity with more contentious political partisanship.
Before double-cropping and mechanization, there was a mutual dependence between land owners, tenants, and wage laborers. Given the physical restraint in cultivating large areas of land, landowners relied on tenants and wage laborers to sustain its productive capacity, and given the limits of the labor pool and the cyclical demand, landowners had an interest in cultivating loyalty among their tenants and workers through year-around generosity and cooperation. On the other hand, tenants and wage laborers relied on landowners to provide a fair price for land and wages in order to supplement their minimal means of subsistence, and thus had an incentive to maintain positive relationships with local landowners despite their economic disparity. With mechanization, however, the physical restraints of cultivation were reduced and the profitability increased, increasing rents, and incentivizing land owners to resume self-cultivation and mechanize production, which economically displaced tenants and wage labors. However, tenants and laborers still, or more greatly, relied on landowners for tenancy and wages as their lack of resources and power minimized the benefits they received from mechanization, and the decrease in available land and wages reduced their options for subsistence. In fact, the money that was previously paid to poor laborers was increasingly paid to wealthy machine owners, while the land that was rented to the landless poor was increasingly leased to wealthy commercial farmers, siphoning income, productive resources, and economic power from poor, landless wage laborers, to wealthy owners of the means of production. This shift in traditional economic relations carried over to the social realm as well, as landowners no longer felt loyalty or obligation to maintain good relations with tenants and laborers through charity and assistance as their services were no longer necessary. In response, however, the social authority of the landowners that accompanied the social use of property for the practical needs of the poor also declined, and the peasant elites increasingly struggled to justify their accumulation of wealth through the traditional religious and social values of Islam, village equality, and charitable giving.
As with most accounts of industrialization, the profits from the green revolution in Sedaka were disproportionately distributed to those that already owned or profited from control over the means of production. The trend is one of increasing economic disparity through a polarization of farm size between small subsistence farms and large commercial farms, a decrease in tenancy, an increase in paddy land prices, and an increase in income inequality. In addition, industrialization has also limited the economic opportunities available to the poorer half of the village; as wage labor and other subsistence opportunities disappear, laborers and the landless are forced to seek work in nearby urban centers. The religious traditions that used to bind the community have also deteriorated, as the rich are accused of shirking their duties of religious charity, ritual feasts, and social obligation. The news isn’t all bad, however. Food security for all, even the poorest, in Sedaka has improved with double-cropping, and with that came a decline in nutrition-related disease and infant mortality. Poor farmers with subsistence production are also no longer forced to migrate to the city in the off-season to supplement their harvest. Moreover, although tenancy has turned commercial, rents to kin and village neighbors are still largely below market price. So, while the social benefits of industrialization can be debated, it is clear that social relations in the village have changed, often shifting resources and power toward the rich and limiting those available to the poor.
Thus, the shift in power and class relations in the small village of Sedaka, Malaysia, is actually a microcosm of a similar shift in power and class relations occurring throughout the globe at that time, as developing countries were persuaded to support agricultural industrialization in order to increase the food supply thus decreasing prices for food-importing countries. In addition, the power relations between the political elite and the wealthy peasants at the state level also led to increased dependency of peasant elites on the favorable distribution of state resources. Scott (1985) describes the power relationship between the rich and the poor in great depth at the village level, but by examining the hegemonic structures in which the village-level power relations operated, we can better understand how these relations were constrained by state and international forces.
Hegemonic Power Structures
Gaventa (1980) defines three dimensions of power through which the actions of the subordinate group can be restricted, which in turn can shape the opportunities and strategies available for the subordinate to utilize in opposition. The most direct route of control is when the dominant directly impact the (non)action of the subordinate or their representative. This, however, requires awareness, access, and action by both parties within the public arena, as well as observation and scrutiny of those actions by others. In this case, since action is required for control to occur, nonaction is interpreted as conformity or indifference and not as a result of influence. What Gaventa (1980) labels the first dimension of power can be seen in the case of class relations in Sedaka. Scott (1985) describes how there were acts of repression from the state in the form of arrests, warnings, investigations, detentions, and legal restrictions for acts of defiance against the ruling party and the state. Thus, at those times when the poor took direct action to protest the actions of the state, they were physically stopped or detained. In this sense, the power of the state played a direct role in constraining the actions and options poor peasants could use to maintain their livelihoods or improve their social situation. It is unclear from Scott’s (1985) study, however, whether this process was reproductive and these direct actions of protest against the state and ruling party had any influence on state policy or the actions of the political elite.
The act of repression though has influence beyond the moment and actors involved in the event. Control can also take the form of threat or exclusion from the decision-making process. Thus, the second dimension of power that Gaventa (1980) describes explains the inaction of subordinate actors in the decision-making process through their intentional or normative exclusion from the decision-making process through fear, implied threat, or another costly barrier. The second dimension of power can be seen in Scott’s (1985) description of the monopoly local elites hold over the local Farmers’ Association and resulting exclusion of poor-farmer interests from the official policy agenda and decision-making process of the state’s agricultural development, which further exacerbates the resource distribution disparity. In addition, since poor peasants are limited in their access to the opportunities and resources needed to sustain their livelihoods, they can afford to risk very little in terms of penalties in the protest of repression, and thus often refrain in fear of possible consequences. In this sense, the intentional exclusion and high cost of action borne to poor peasants prevents them from acting in opposition to the hegemonic power of the state and political and economic elites, not because they are indifferent to the state’s actions, but because they do not have the means to gain access or challenge their exclusion from the decision-making process. As a result, their restricted resources and access to the decision-making process greatly restrains the options available to the poor to resist and act upon the repressive actions of those in power. In a way, the poor cannot afford not to conform to the interests of the wealthy.
Gaventa (1980) however, goes one step further in explaining the inaction subordinate with the third dimension of power. Gaventa (1980) argues that, instead of repressing or excluding the interests of the subordinate, the dominant can influence the interests of the subordinate directly through the reproduction, internationalization, and acceptance of existing power relations by the subordinate. That is, when the inaction caused by the second dimension of power becomes normalized as part of the status quo, the subordinate come to accept the existing power relationship as inevitable, legitimate, justified, or are no longer even aware of the disparity in power. In this way, the subordinate may actually become indifferent or conform to the actions of those in power, thus preventing conflicting interests and confrontations from arising in the first place. Gaventa (1980) goes on to argue that the three dimensions of power are interrelated and reinforce each other, with the inaction of the subordinate in the third dimension being a consequence of the cumulative impact of dominant power over time. Thus, in order for the subordinate to actively participate in the decision-making process, the challenges of the second and third dimensions of power must first be overcome. However, the challenges for the subordinate are the same strategies that the dominant utilize to maintain the status quo, further complicating the effort for change. In addition, the cumulative and reproductive nature of power also makes multiple components vulnerable to a single defeat, thus incentivizing collective action and consequence in efforts to challenge or protect the existing structure. What is unclear in Gaventa’s (1980) argument, though, is the inevitability of the evolution of the third dimension of power and how the subordinate go about challenging the existing power structure if they lack the resources or are unaware of the power disparity. Does the momentum of power structures make them irreversible or directional? Is change always dictated by elite actions and interests? While Gaventa (1980) presents a sound and logical argument, the revolutionary would be reluctant to accept the trajectory this argument implies.
Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony is similar to Gaventa’s third dimension of power in that it describes a strategy of domination through the unconscious acceptance of the hegemonic ideology by the less powerful through a reproductive and cumulative process of action by both parties. Gramsci’s theory, however, highlights the ways in which political actors in control of the means of production utilize ideas and cultural symbols within the capitalist ideology to dominate subordinate groups, which can serve to restrict and define the nature of what the groups believe they can achieve through resistance. More importantly, the language, ideas, and mechanisms available to subordinate groups to express their opposition is developed through the hegemonic ideology, thus limiting the ways in which these groups can even conceptualize and articulate their subordination. In addition, by conceptualizing and articulating their grievances through the dominant discourse, subordinate groups also unconsciously reinforce and reproduce the legitimacy of the hegemonic ideology. It is not enough to simply create the tools for expression, however, the dominant group must also convince the subordinate group through the cultural cooptation of civil society organizations that the hegemonic ideology is also in their interest and the society’s at large, and incentivize them to consent to the social order. Like Gaventa (1980), Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony emphasizes domination through the avoidance of conflict and identifies the reproductive nature of hegemony as the mechanism for change, as individuals with similar cultural values, from either dominant or subordinate groups, work collectively to challenge, influence, and/or infiltrate the dominant ideology with their cultural values and symbols.
Gramsci’s argument differs from Gaventa’s (1980), however, in the fluidity between successive hegemonic ideologies and dominant and subordinate groups. Gramsci’s argument allows for more dynamic change to occur through collective agency and permits pockets of subordinate interests to exist within the hegemonic structure. In this way, Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony better explains the constraints poor peasants experienced in their effort to resist agricultural industrialization in Sedaka, than does Gaventa’s (1980) argument. Through Gaventa’s (1980) third dimension of power, the poor in Sedaka would be unaware of the power disparity, but it is clear from Scott’s (1985) description, that the poor were aware of their subordination, and they took action to resist it when possible. In addition, Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony allows for the difference between the public and private transcript that Scott (1985) identifies through the coexistence of subordinate interests and hegemonic ideologies.
Scott (1985), however, disagrees and argues that the actions of the poor in Sedaka serve to disprove Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. Scott (1985) argues that the poor are highly aware of the power disparity and conform to the hegemonic ideology in public while maintaining a counterhegemonic culture in private. Generally, the local folk culture of poor peasants has served to explicitly express their conflicting perspective on hegemonic culture and collective historical experience of subordination, and although they may seem to conform to the hegemonic culture in public, they do so only because it facilitates the maintenance of the meager livelihoods, not because they accept it as inevitable, legitimate, or just. In fact, the necessity for public conformity that restricts the strategies the poor can utilize to resist the dominance of the hegemonic ideology, also serves to reproduce the dominance of that ideology. In addition, while folk culture is a shared history of experience, it serves less as a mechanism of mobilization or social conformity, than as a foundation for an imagined community of conflict and subordination. Furthermore, Scott (1985) specifically counters the idea of complete hegemonic subordination. He argues that, according to Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, in order for the ideology to have a hegemonic dominance it must claim to serve some interest of the subordinate group in order to provide mutual benefits. However, given the idealized nature of these promises, they will inevitably disappoint and thus offer a mechanism on which subordinate groups can stake their grievances and counter the legitimacy of the hegemonic ideology. Alternatively, Scott (1985) provides a realist perspective of the way in which peasants rationalize the costs and benefits of their resistance, arguing that they are motivated by their primitive interest for survival, restrict their strategies for resistance to only those that do not unnecessarily risk access to important resources, and maintain practical, short-term goals that focus on their immediate survival needs. Thus, although their consciousness of subordination may seem constrained, it is not due to the domination of the hegemonic ideology but because of the immediacy of their survival needs. As their material situation improves, Scott (1985) argues, their consciousness will evolve to match the expansion of options available.
While I don’t disagree with Scott’s (1985) assessment of the constraints on the resistance strategies of the poor in Sedaka, I also don’t think it disproves Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony. In fact, I think they can coexist, especially when one views the hegemonic power structure in 1979 Sedaka as one in a state of transition from a traditionally agricultural ideology to the industrial capitalist ideology of the international economy, instead of a rigid fully-formed hegemonic structure. I think Scott (1985) would agree that Gaventa’s three-dimensional theory of power does not account for the private counterculture present among the poor peasants of Sedaka, but I would go on to argue that Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony not only explains the presence of the peasant counterculture, but also explains the prevalence of the traditional village values with both peasants and elites in tandem with the state-sponsored capitalist ideology. Scott (1985) explains away as irony the fact that the culture of dominance previously created by village elites to preserve their social authority over the poor, on whom they relied on for wage labor, has become the foundation of the counterculture employed by the poor to discredit and shame the actions of the rich under the emerging capitalist ideology. However, I would argue that according to Gramsci’s theory of cultural hegemony, the hegemonic ideology in Sedaka is currently transitioning from the traditional village-based agricultural relations of production to the modern industrial relations of production of the international economy. Thus, the old agricultural historical bloc is in the process of losing its hegemonic status to the new industrial hegemonic bloc. However, the poor peasants in Sedaka continue to conceptualize and articulate their grievances through the traditional discourse in an effort to reproduce the old ideology under which they were afforded greater social and economic power. In addition, the permeability of the dominant and subordinate groups under Gramsci’s theory explains the varied experience of the peasants in Sedaka, as the change in their relative economic power varies depending on their ownership and control over the means of production. To be fair though, Scott’s (1985) argument of rationality still holds valid within this framework. While the poor may make rational choices concerning the degree of risk they assume in their strategies of resistance, the degree of risk associated with those strategies and the resources available to the poor to engage these strategies are determined and constrained by the dominance of the hegemonic ideology. Thus, as the capitalist ideology gained dominance over the traditional agricultural values, the poor experienced a decrease in access to land and capital, which increased their reliance on the rich for subsistence, thus constraining their ability to openly resist the economic disparity occurring under the capitalist ideology.
Resistance Strategies
Despite the nature of the hegemonic structure in which these communities find themselves, however, they nonetheless retain a variety of collective action strategies for resisting conflicting and/or repressive ideologies and power relations. Hirschman (1970) reduces the potential strategies available to subordinate groups into a typology of three basic actions – exit, voice, and loyalty – which vary in cost and effect depending on the nature of the power relationship. And although Hirschman (1970) derives his theory from consumer-firm relations within a capitalist economy, he argues that this theory is equally applicable to member-organization relations found within the political relationship between citizens, civil society, and the state. Hirschman (1970) bases his argument on the assumption that an organization’s strength is directly related to the quality of the goods and/or services it provides, and thus any fluctuation in the organization’s strength can be remedied in an adjustment of the quality of its product, which is determined by the degree to which its products satisfy the needs or interests of its members. The strategies which its members can then utilize to express their dissatisfaction with the organization’s products thus fall under the categories of exit, voice, and loyalty.
The voice option varies in magnitude and involves the public or direct expression of one’s critical opinions in a way that can impact the actions of the organizational elite. The impact and costs associated with the voice option depend greatly on its frequency, the magnitude and availability of structural mechanisms of expression, and the distribution of power between the member and the organizational elite. The often-considerable cost involved in the strategic effort, personal risk, and mobilization required for significant change through voice alone relegates this strategy to instances where the members have a relatively large amount of power, a substantial investment, or where the costs of exit or loyalty are much greater. In an organizational setting, however, the voice option risks being coopted into the hegemonic power structure as a symbolic gesture of dissent to the opposition and losing a great deal of its impact. However, it can also be strengthened if it carries the threat of exit behind it. Of the strategies used by the poor peasants in Sedaka, voice became a strategic favorite as the poor leveraged their power for gossip and slander of the rich to shame them into maintaining favorable economic relations. Their use of voice however, is restrained to private and indirect expression of opposition in order to not directly jeopardize their dependence on the rich for subsistence. The times in which resistance took the form of public opposition or protest in Sedaka, proved relatively costly in terms of lost resources, and thus were used sparingly. However, the costs of public opposition to the poor were also generally less than the costs associated with the exit option.
Another option for resistance under Hirschman’s (1970) typology is exit. This option involves the member terminating their support or involvement in the organization as a way to express their dissatisfaction with the organization’s products. Hirschman (1970) argues that the collective loss of member exit will impact the strength of the organization leading the elites to respond by improving the quality of their product in order to reverse the loss of support. Although the exit option can be a more effective way of expressing one’s dissatisfaction and provoking change, it is often also the costliest strategy within the political sphere, as organizational elite often invoke high exit costs in order to preserve their political power. The exit option becomes even more costly, prohibitive, or ineffective when the alternative options are either severely limited, relatively homogenous, or of inferior quality due to the monopoly of the dominant hegemonic ideology, at times leaving voice as the more effective option but also a poor substitute for exit. In Sedaka, poor peasants were able to utilize their option for exit to the extent that the risk of uncertainty in the urban labor market was less than the risk of declining livelihood options in Sedaka due to mechanization. However, considering the declining role of the poor in the Sedakan economy, the threat of exit also likely had little impact on the actions and interests of the rich, and thus did not have as great of an impact as voice might have had in this case. In addition, the exit option potentially carried overwhelming costs for the peasant with no familial contacts outside of the village or insufficient resources to even attempt an exit. Thus, as restrained as is was, in the case of the poor peasants in Sedaka, the most effective option for resistance to the increasing dominance of the hegemonic capitalist ideology was to exercise their option to voice.
Members, of course, also have the option to remain loyal to the organization despite their dissatisfaction, according to Hirschman (1970). He argues that if a member anticipates that their exercise of voice or exit will not affect positive change in the organization, then the member will likely remain loyal in order to prevent the situation from becoming worse. This argument, however, assumes that the member would maintain an interest in the strength of the organization even after they have terminated their involvement and support. This situation could occur if the member already had an influential role in the quality of the product, resulting in further deterioration of the product after their departure, which, at worst, would accumulate over time, or if the product is such that the member would still be impacted by the poor quality of the product even after having terminated involvement in the organization, as would be the case with a public good. Evidence of loyalty is evident in Scott’s (1985) description of the poor in Sedaka, however, their motivation behind the decision to be loyal would seem to contradict Hirschman’s (1970) argument. Scott (1985) describes situations where peasants continue to work hard and remain loyal to their employers and landlords, and do not engage in the covert actions of resistance with their neighbors. However, this is not because of fear that the quality of the economy will deteriorate with their departure or opposition, but that their personal situation and livelihood would suffer. Thus, loyal peasants calculate the costs of exit and voice to be greater to their personal and familial survival than the cost of loyalty, which may bring economic benefits while requiring the sacrifice of economic power and social dignity. In this instance, Scott’s (1985) realist perspective of peasant strategies for resistance appears to offer a more valid explanation than Hirschman’s (1970) theory, since exit holds little impact in light of the declining role of the poor in the economy and loyalty is motivated by individual rather than collective interests. While voice continues to be a viable strategy for the poor in Sedaka, the great constraints and costs associated with it, drastically limit any impact it might have on economic relations within Sedaka, much less on the hegemonic capitalist ideology at the state and international level. Although, Scott (1985) would argue that the poor resist not for structural change, but for short-term personal survival, and in this sense voice might have the impact needed to sustain the poor through the next day, week, or season.
Like Scott (1985), Thompson (1963) provides a thick, rich description of the shift in class relations during the transition from a traditional feudal economy to a modern industrialized economy. Thompson’s (1963) study differs from Scott’s (1985), however, in that the case focuses on urban working-class artisans and tradesmen who experience a decline in their role in the economy as their relationship to the means of production is gradually marginalized in favor of mechanized and unskilled labor. In this case, Thompson (1963) identifies the role of civil society organizations and culture as the factors influencing working class-based association and consolidation behind efforts to resist the shift in economic relations occurring in Britain during the industrial revolution. While the experiences of the British artisans in the 1830s show striking similarities to the experiences of the Sedakan peasants in the 1970s, there are important differences that ultimately influence the different outcomes in their collective struggles against industrialization and the dominant hegemonic capitalist ideology.
Based on Scott (1985) and Thompson’s (1963) accounts, industrialization manifested itself in similar ways through the depersonalization of social relations, the social and economic marginalization of manual labor, the consolidation of class-based grievances of dignity, morality, and custom, and the economic exploitation and political oppression of workers. In addition to the economic differences between the urban and rural settings, what differs in their accounts however, is that the British working-class had a history of guilds and trade unions that served to unify workers and strengthen their power against the owners of capital. During the industrial revolution, manual laborers utilized these organization to consolidate the new working class through their similar interests and leveraged the relative skill involved in the different trades to increase their negotiating power. In this way, the working-class in Britain was able to enforce a strong mutuality among workers, maintain a certain level of social control over their livelihoods, and avoid complete dependence on the rich, as happened to the poor in Sedaka. Britain also experienced a major wave of Irish immigration during this time which brought with it a culture of solidarity and resistance among the lower class. The Irish not only brought with them a huge supply of cheap, unskilled labor, but also a revolutionary mentality that mobilized the British working class and eventually gained the support of the middle-class. I would argue that the strong civil society tradition, culture of resistance, and middle-class support are what allowed for increased consolidation and unity among the working-class in Britain, while also decreasing the individual cost of resistance. These factors are lacking in Scott’s (1985) description of resistance in Sedaka, and proved influential in Thompson’s (1963) study. However, these factors are also not something a poor rural peasant can usually control and may be a result of the urban setting in which the British working class found themselves. Thus, while Thompson’s (1963) study is valuable in confirming the impact of the structural shift on manual laborers that occurred during the industrial revolution, the urban environment proves to offer different strategies and resources to the poor in their resistance efforts than would typically be available to the poor rural peasant. However, as we saw earlier, exit to urban areas is typically an option available to marginalized rural peasants, if they so choose.
Given that both Hirschman (1970) and Thompson (1963) offer theories that fail to explain the experience of the poor peasant in Sedaka, alternatively Scott (1985) identifies what he calls “everyday forms of peasant resistance” that poor peasants use to resist hegemonic forces and maintain their livelihoods while avoiding the cost of public solidarity in opposition to dominate groups. Scott (1985) describes everyday forms of resistance as strategies used by subordinate groups to intentionally assert social control over their livelihoods under repressive hegemonic structures, and are characterized by mutuality, reputational slander, collective “foot dragging,” anonymous acts of sabotage, and an aura of conformity in the public sphere, where the subordinate are likely to experience the most dominance. The nature of the resistance is influenced by the degree of public conformity required, the existing forms of labor control, and the degree of risk, fear, or severity of retaliation. For the poor, especially, resistance is motivated mainly by the indulgent, self-interested need of daily survival, rather than ideological expression, and supported through a common culture of resistance. While the characteristics of everyday forms of resistance allow these acts to persist under a repressive dominant hegemonic structure, they also prevent the efforts of the poor from gaining the momentum to impart more broad structural change. The constant balance between resistance and survival is vulnerable to cooptation by the dominant group and resignation the most impoverished, while the private and covert nature of the resistance prevents the movement from gaining support beyond the immediate social circles within the village. However, as miniscule and ineffective as everyday forms of resistance may seem, Scott (1985) insists that these forms of resistance are the kindle on which broader revolutionary movements are eventually ignited.
While even under repressive, dominant hegemonic structure, resistance can take many forms. However, the strategies that a subordinate group employs in resistance to hegemonic ideologies greatly depends on the constraints in which they find themselves and the resources available to them, which in turn depend on the degree of ownership and control they have over the means of production in a capitalist economy. Thus, the strategies employed by Hirschman’s (1970) consumer-members are different than those employed by Thompson’s (1963) British urban working class, which are both different than Scott’s (1985) poor rural Sedakan peasants. In addition, the level of power experience by these different groups also dictates the impact their resistance efforts may have on the trajectory and nature of the dominant hegemonic structure. In this sense, the everyday forms of peasant resistance in Sedaka will have little impact on the dominant global hegemonic capitalist ideology under which they find themselves, and thus the poor will continue to resist and struggle for their daily survival until the next shift in the dominant hegemonic structure.
References
Gaventa, John. 1980. Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley. Urbana, IL: University of Illinios Press.
Hirschman, Albert O. 1970. Exit, Voice, and Loyalty: Responses to Decline in Firms, Organizations, and States. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lears, T.J. Jackson. 1985. "The Concept of Cultural Hegemony: Problems and Possibilities." The American Historical Review 90 (3): 567-593.
Scott, James C. 1985. Weapons of the Weak: Everyday Forms of Peasant Resistance. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Thompson, E.P. 1963. The Making of the Working Class.