Finding Space for Resistant Subcultures

Abstract

This paper is a preliminary attempt to come to terms theoretically with empirical research findings drawn from distinctly different socio-spatial and historical contexts, but that seem similarly inexplicable through conventional theorization of power and resistance. Specifically, both authors, in the context of our separate research programs, have encountered practices of resistance that are "off-kilter" both to accepted readings of resistance, and to the fields of power within which those practices exist. We address this theoretical and material slippage in three ways. First, we draw from Scott's treatment of everyday resistance, Foucault's notion of "agonism" and de Certeau's discussion of "la perruque," to discuss what we wish to describe as off-kilter resistance: those -often ambiguous -practices that productively circumvent power, rather than actively opposing it. 1 Second, we use the concept of "Third Space" 2 to theoretically and descriptively situate practices of off-kilter and directly oppositional resistance within the contingencies of their historical and geographical contexts. Third, we develop brief examples from our empirical projects -in latetwentieth century northern Pakistan, and mid-nineteenth century central Ontario -to illustrate the heuristic value of the concepts of "off-kilter resistance" and "Third Space" for understanding the resistant practices of subordinate sub-cultures.