A Sense of Inequality by Wendy Bottero;

Author:Wendy Bottero;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Book Network Int'l Limited trading as NBN International (NBNi)
Published: 2012-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

I explore these more subterranean expressions of opposition further in Chapter 6, in work which argues that people’s ‘public face’ of conformity is often a response to power relations rather than actual consent or naturalisation. However, reiterating a theme from Chapter 3, Flacks argues that having to adapt to the dominant practices that perpetuate their stigmatisation and subordination has debilitating effects on the subordinated, so liberation movements must not only seek a ‘cultural transformation in the wider society’, they must also seek to combat the devaluing of subordinate groups by ‘consciousness raising’ exercises, ‘encouraging forms of self-assertion and self-esteem previously unavailable’ (2004: 149–50). This entails collective refusals and transgressions of codes of public conduct (for example, not riding at the back of the bus, not following codes for acceptable ‘feminine’ behaviour, not being closeted). ‘Liberation’ movements are fundamentally disruptive to participants’ everyday lives, as they attempt to ‘renegotiate power relations in close-up institutional settings and face-to-face encounters’, by acts of ‘non-compliance and nonconformity within the context of “private”, “personal”, and everyday domains’ (Ibid.: 150). But how is such disruption possible for the powerless and subjugated?

One explanation argues that changing times create more fertile conditions for disruption. For example, McAdam (1982) argues that the gains of the civil rights movement were facilitated by shifting political opportunities[4] in the United States which, at least for a time, altered the power imbalance between the movement and the white establishment. For Piven and Cloward, ‘extraordinary disturbances in the larger society are required to transform the poor from apathy to hope, from quiescence to indignation’ because the ‘quiescence’ of the poor ‘is enforced by institutional life’, by the daily routines, obligations and social sanctions which constrain people (1979: 14). During wars or economic crises, protest movements are better able to extract concessions from elites, but the real significance of such disturbances is that they ‘destroy the structures and routines of daily life’, weakening ‘the regulatory capacities of these structures’ (Ibid.: 10–11). The ordinary routines of social life constrain protest (since people have families to feed, jobs to keep, obligations to uphold), but if their lives are already disrupted, then people have less to lose. However, a change in perspective is also required with a transformation ‘of consciousness and behaviour’ as people ‘who are ordinarily fatalistic’ and believe existing arrangements are ‘inevitable’ must develop ‘a new sense of efficacy’ so that those who ‘ordinarily consider themselves helpless come to believe that they have some capacity to alter their lot’. These shifts ‘do not arise during ordinary periods’ but only ‘when large-scale changes undermine political stability’, because such disruption gives the poor hope, makes ‘insurgency possible in the first place’ and renders political leaders more vulnerable (Ibid.: 28).

But just as significantly, a focus on the ‘collective refusal’ of noncompliance in everyday social arenas presents a different way of thinking about power and the collective resources which enable social challenge, protest and dissent. If the power of the dominant rests on keeping the actions of other agents in

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