The importance of context in understanding resistance
Stellan Vinthagen December 26th, 2006
Being in Morocko I can’t help but think of the importance of the context when you try to understand what is resistance and what is not. I mean, ordinary and everyday behavior that would make no importance might become very dramatic in a certain context. When some couple hold hands or walk along the beach holding arms around each other it is quite dramatic in a Muslim country where public signs of affection is not really accepted. You might even understand that as a kind of resistance to a religious oppressive norm, or? In Sweden that would not be resistance but here it is possible to understand as such. And what about the two morockan women sitting close together on the beach laughing and smiling, and then kissing each other? A resistance act by lesbians on the beach, finding some freedom to live and be relaxed among the tourists? Homosexuals have almost everywhere in the world problems if they openly show affection to each other, but here even more so. So, the same behavior might become conventional at one place and one historic setting but a resistance act at another, depending on the relation to existing laws, norms, attitudes, i.e. to power.
- Norms , Resistance , Uncategorized
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