Abstract

The point of departure in this article is that social science researchers have not been able to show how different representations (pictures, statements, images, practices) have different impacts on the practice of negotiating power. However, when alternative resisting discourses are strengthened, it might be due to that people “map” their mental representations against what they comprehend as more concrete representations – and generate a match. Those representations that are comprehended as concrete – persons, performances, images, etc. – are seen as evidence and are mapped to determine whether or not the spoken discourse is true or false. Following this logic, to be trustworthy a discourse must not only consist of statements but also be composed of what people interpret as representations that are more “real”. The use of words such as ‘evidence’ and ‘demonstration’ in interviews with Cambodian women politicians could then be seen as indications of the importance of concrete representations. These representations, for example women that have assumed a political identity and act successfully from it, can make an alternative discourse trustworthy
and the women politicians can then be perceived as a means of resistance. Or as one of my respondents expressed it herself: “It is a fight back”.

Read full article:

Mona Lilja (2009) Theorizing Resistance: Mapping, Concretism and Universalism The New Feminist Concepts of our Time?, in Resistance Studies Magazine, 2009#1

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