The dearth of conventional collective action— in par tic u lar, contentious protests among the subaltern groups (the poor, peasants, and women) in the developing countries, together with a disillusionment with dominant socialist parties, pushed many radical observers to “discover” and highlight different types of activism, however small- scale, local, or even individualistic. Such a quest, meanwhile, both contributed to and benefi ted from the upsurge of theoretical perspectives, during the 1980s, associated with poststructuralism that made micropolitics and “everyday resistance” a popular idea. James Scott’s departure, during the 1980s, from a structuralist position in studying the behavior of the peasantry in Asia to a more ethnographic method of focusing on individual reactions of peasants contributed considerably to this paradigm shift .27 In the meantime, Foucault’s “decentered” notion of power, together with a revival of neo- Gramscian politics of culture (hegemony), served as a key theoretical backing for micropolitics, and thus the “re sis tance” perspective. The notion of “re sis tance” came to stress that power and counterpower were not in binary opposition, but in a decoupled, complex, ambivalent, and perpetual “dance of control.”28 It based itself on the Foucauldian idea that “wherever there is power there is re sis tance,” although the latter consisted largely of small- scale, everyday, tiny activities that the agents could aff ord to articulate given their po liti cal constraints. Such a perception of re sis tance penetrated not only peasant studies, but a variety of fi elds, including labor studies, identity politics, ethnicity, women’s studies, education, and studies of the urban subaltern. Thus, multiple researchers discussed how relating stories about miracles “gives voice to pop u lar re sis tance”29; how disenfranchised women resisted patriarchy by relating folktales and songs or by pretending to be possessed or crazy;30 how reviving extended family among the urban pop u lar classes represented an “avenue of po liti cal participation.”31 The relationships between the Filipino bar girls and western men were discussed not simply in terms of total domination, but in a complex and contingent fashion;32 and the veiling of the Muslim working woman has been represented not in simple terms of submission, but in ambivalent terms of protest and co- optation— hence, an “accommodating protest.”33 Indeed, on occasions, both veiling and unveiling were simultaneously considered as a symbol of re sis tance. Undoubtedly, such an attempt to grant agency to the subjects that until then were depicted as “passive poor,” “submissive women,” “apo liti cal peasant,” and “oppressed worker” was a positive development. The re sis tance paradigm helps to uncover the complexity of power relations in society in general, and the politics of the subaltern in par tic u lar. It tells us that we may not expect a universalized form of struggle; that totalizing pictures oft en distort variations in people’s perceptions about change; that local should be recognized as a signifi cant site of struggle as well as a unit of analysis; that or ga nized collective action may not be possible everywhere, and thus alternative forms of struggles must be discovered and acknowledged; that or ganized protest as such may not necessarily be privileged in the situations where suppression rules. The value of a more fl exible, small- scale, and unbureaucratic activism should, therefore, be acknowledged.34 These are some of the issues that critiques of poststructuralist advocates of “re sis tance” ignore.35 Yet a number of conceptual and political problems also emerge from this paradigm. The immediate trouble is how to conceptualize re sis tance, and its relation to power, domination, and submission. James Scott seems to be clear about what he means by the term: Class re sis tance includes any act(s) by member(s) of a subordinate class that is or are intended either to mitigate or deny claims (for example, rents, taxes, prestige) made on that class by superordinate classes (for example, landlords, large farmers, the state) or to advance its own claims (for example, work, land, charity, respect) vis-à- vis these superordinate classes.36 [emphasis added] However, the phrase “any act” blocks delineating between qualitatively diverse forms of activities that Scott lists. Are we not to distinguish between large- scale collective action and individual acts, say, of tax dodging? Do reciting poetry in private, however subversive- sounding, and engaging in armed struggle have identical value? Should we not expect unequal aff ectivity and implications from such diff erent acts? Scott was aware of this, and so agreed with those who had made distinctions between diff erent types of resistance— for example, “real re sis tance” refers to “or ga nized, systematic, pre- planned or selfl ess practices with revolutionary consequences,” and “token re sis tance” points to unor ga nized incidental acts without any revolutionary consequences, and which are accommodated in the power structure.37 Yet he insisted that the “token re sis tance” is no less real than the “real re sis tance.” Scott’s followers, however, continued to make further distinctions. Nathan Brown, in studying peasant politics in Egypt, for instance, identifi es three forms of politics: atomistic (politics of individuals and small groups with obscure content), communal (a group eff ort to disrupt the system, by slowing down production and the like), and revolt ( just short of revolution to negate the system).38 Beyond this, many resistance writers tend to confuse an awareness about oppression with acts of resistance against it. The fact that poor women sing songs about their plight or ridicule men in their private gatherings indicates their understanding of gender dynamics. This does not mean, however, that they are involved in acts of resistance; neither are the miracle stories of the poor urbanites who imagine the saints to come and punish the strong. Such an understanding of “resistance” fails to capture the extremely complex interplay of conflict and consent, and ideas and action, operating within systems of power. Indeed, the link between consciousness and action remains a major sociological dilemma.39 Scott makes it clear that re sis tance is an intentional act. In Weberian tradition, he takes the meaning of action as a crucial element. This intentionality, while signifi cant in itself, obviously leaves out many types of individual and collective practices whose intended and unintended consequences do not correspond. In Cairo or Tehran, for example, many poor families illegally tap into electricity and running water from the municipality despite their awareness of their behavior’s illegality. Yet they do not steal urban ser vices in order to express their defi ance vis-à- vis the authorities. Rather, they do it because they feel the necessity of those ser vices for a decent life, because they fi nd no other way to acquire them. But these very mundane acts when continued lead to signifi cant changes in the urban structure, in social policy, and in the actors’ own lives. Hence, the signifi cance of the unintended consequences of agents’ daily activities. In fact, many authors in the re sis tance paradigm have simply abandoned intent and meaning, focusing instead eclectically on both intended and unintended practices as manifestations of “re sis tance.” There is still a further question. Does re sis tance mean defending an already achieved gain (in Scott’s terms, denying claims made by dominant groups over the subordinate ones) or making fresh demands (to “advance its own claims”), what I like to call “encroachment”? In much of the re sis tance literature, this distinction is missing. Although one might imagine moments of overlap, the two strategies, however, lead to diff erent po liti cal consequences; this is so in par tic u lar when we view them in relation to the strategies of dominant power. The issue was so crucial that Lenin devoted his entire What Is to Be Done? to discussing the implications of these two strategies, albeit in diff erent terms of “economism/trade unionism” vs. “social demo cratic/party politics.” What ever one may think about a Leninist/vanguardist paradigm, it was one that corresponded to a par tic u lar theory of the state and power (a capitalist state to be seized by a mass movement led by the working- class party); in addition, it was clear where this strategy wanted to take the working class (to establish a socialist state). Now, what is the perception of the state in the “resistance” paradigm? What is the strategic aim in this perspective? Where does the resistance paradigm want to take its agents/subjects, beyond “prevent[ing] the worst and promis[ing] something better”?40 Much of the literature of re sis tance is based upon a notion of power that Foucault has articulated, that power is everywhere, that it “circulates” and is never “localized here and there, never in anybody’s hands.” 41 Such a formulation is surely instructive in transcending the myth of the powerlessness of the ordinary and in recognizing their agency. Yet this “decentered” notion of power, shared by many poststructuralist “re sis tance” writers, underestimates state power, notably its class dimension, since it fails to see that although power circulates, it does so unevenly— in some places it is far weightier, more concentrated, and “thicker,” so to speak, than in others. In other words, like it or not, the state does matter, and one needs to take that into account when discussing the potential of urban subaltern activism. Although Foucault insists that re sis tance is real when it occurs outside of and in de pen dent of the systems of power, the perception of power that informs the “resistance” literature leaves little room for an analysis of the state as a system of power. It is, therefore, not accidental that a theory of the state and, therefore, an analysis of the possibility of cooptation, are absent in almost all accounts of “resistance.” Consequently, the cherished acts of resistance float around aimlessly in an unknown, uncertain, and ambivalent universe of power relations, with the end result an unsettled, tense accommodation with the existing power arrangement. Lack of a clear concept of resistance, moreover, often leads writers in this genre to overestimate and read too much into the acts of the agents. The result is that almost any act of the subjects potentially becomes one of “resistance.” Determined to discover the “inevitable” acts of resistance, many poststructuralist writers often come to “replace their subject.”42 While they attempt to challenge the essentialism of such perspectives as “passive poor,” “submissive Muslim women,” and “inactive masses,” they tend, however, to fall into the trap of essentialism in reverse— by reading too much into ordinary behaviors, interpreting them as necessarily conscious or contentious acts of defi ance. This is so because they overlook the crucial fact that these practices occur mostly within the prevailing systems of power. For example, some of the lower class’s activities in the Middle East that some authors read as “re sis tance,” “intimate politics” of defi ance, or “avenues of participation” may actually contribute to the stability and legitimacy of the state.43 The fact that people are able to help themselves and extend their networks surely shows their daily activism and struggles. However, by doing so the actors may hardly win any space from the state (or other sources of power, like capital and patriarchy)— they are not necessarily challenging domination. In fact, governments often encourage self- help and local initiatives so long as they do not turn oppositional. They do so in order to shift some of their burdens of social welfare provision and responsibilities onto the individual citizens. The proliferation of many NGOs in the global South is a good indicator of this. In short, much of the re sis tance literature confuses what one might consider coping strategies (when the survival of the agents is secured at the cost of themselves or that of fellow humans) and effective participation or subversion of domination. There is a last question. If the poor are always able to resist in many ways (by discourse or actions, individual or collective, overt or covert) the systems of domination, then what is the need to assist them? If they are already po litically able citizens, why should we expect the state or any other agency to empower them? Misreading the behavior of the poor may, in fact, frustrate our moral responsibility toward the vulnerable. As Michael Brown rightly notes, when you “elevate the small injuries of childhood to the same moral status as suffering of truly oppressed,” you are committing “a savage leveling that diminishes rather than intensifies our sensitivities to injustice.” 44