Anthropology 330: Resistance and Refusal

What does it mean to push back against power? Since the 1970s, resistance has been a dominant framework for cultural anthropologists. Emerging out of interests in social inequality, hegemony, and power, anthropologists have sought to analyze practices of "resistance" at multiple scales, from mass political movements to the "hidden transcripts" of everyday life. This focus on resistance has also met its own resistances, most recently from scholars who have theorized "refusal" as an alternative framework for understanding counter-hegemonic practices. In this seminar, we will engage with texts on a variety of issues -- including civil disobedience, peasant uprisings, postcolonial and indigenous protests, religious "piety" movements, non-sovereign politics, and ethnographic refusal -- to explore the following questions: What is the difference between resisting and refusing -- and why does it matter? How do acts of resistance and refusal generate new structures of power? And what might the future of resistance and refusal look like? Class format is seminar (discussion-based) and assignments include short papers (4-6 pages), oral presentations on readings, and a final exploratory paper on a research topic.