This book uses peasant societies in Malaysia as case studies but the theory it sets out for understanding how the weak resist the strong is immediately transferable to other historical and contemporary situations. It shows how the powerless resist through various actions such as pretending to misunderstand, evasion and secret sabotage. Scott includes examples that show how, alongside political resistance, cultural resistance is also important: the jokes, nicknames, stories and songs. This cultural resistance mocks the powerful and imagines a social order in which the oppressors are on the bottom and the oppressed are on top, but it also sets up social and moral expectations about how the powerful should act. The powerful most often follow these expectations (for example, in terms of charitable giving to the poor). Scott sees this as a war between the powerless and the powerful, but as a ‘cold war’ because both sides, as things stand, have too much invested in the status quo to risk an all-out confrontation. 

Most studies of slave resistance focus on slave rebellions and escapes to the North. Enslaved women rarely took part in either of these. Camp has used Scott’s theories as a way of exploring the alternative means of resistance by enslaved women. In particular, the book looks at the ways in which women created secret spaces away from their owners’ view where they could rest and be themselves away from the constant supervision of white people. At the same time, slave owners tried more and more to fix slaves in place – forbidding travel and requiring slaves to be counted at fixed times and places. Camp describes this as the creation of ‘rival geographies’, which I feel is something Key Stage 3 and 4 History students would find a relatable concept: most students would know which areas of their school are least supervised, for example. Camp’s book is a great way in to a different perspective on slavery in particular and on the ways the powerless resist the powerful in general.

In this book, the concept of everyday resistance is explored in relation to life under the all-pervading supervision of the Soviet State. When we talk to students about the extent of resistance in Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, we usually discuss the lack of reliable sources for finding out how people really felt about living under regimes that punished dissent very harshly. This book uses the archives of the secret police to reveal ‘a society where grumbling and jokes about the government were endemic and where drunken outbursts involving abuse of the authorities and desecration of the flag occurred regularly’. Other wonderful and revealing sources from the police archives are anonymous letters, abusive messages written on ballot papers, overheard jokes and reports of ‘gross disrespect’ to portraits and statues of Soviet leaders. The book creates a convincing argument for widespread resistance to Soviet state control, albeit in a subversive rather than confrontational manner. It’s another very interesting perspective on resistance that, again, students will be quick to recognise from their own experiences of dealing with control and supervision. I was strongly reminded of student responses to my school’s Science department’s short-lived ‘Wonder Wall’ (a space for students to post questions about the wonders of our world). ‘I wonder…’ read the very first anonymous post ‘…why we have swear words such as **** and ******?’ 

Lubiana Himid on what made her choose a career in the arts to change the world.

This clip tells some of the stories of feminist artists who used their art to change the public perception of women in the 70's.