Anthropological studies of hegemony and resistance have often been viewed in Manichean terms, and explained through the equally dichotomous categories of domination and subordination. However, power-embedded relationships across classes operate in more complicated way then simple opposition. Furthermore, the classic concern for class-based relationships undermines how power operates along other lines including, race, gender, and sexuality. Exploring the debates on hegemony and resistance and providing examples of women’s experiences with both male and labor-based oppression sheds light on more complex process’ of historical interactions that constitute power relations on intersecting levels.
Gramsci’s idea of hegemony has been a hotly debated issue in anthropology. Unlike domination through overt coercion, “Gramsci argued, elites control the ‘ideological sectors’ of society […] and can thereby engineer consent for their rule” (Scott 1985: 39). Anne Showstack Sassoon defines hegemony as an interaction between “influence, leadership, [and] consent rather than the alternative and opposite meaning of domination” (1982: 13). Christine Buci-Glucksmann explores how influence, leadership, and consent interact in her article “Hegemony and Consent: A Political Strategy” (Showstack Sassoon 1982). Consent can be achieved both passively and actively; passive consent is accomplished without the involvement of subordinated groups, while active consent involves a “real interchange between rulers and ruled” (Showstack Sassoon 1982: 118).
For governments to come to power, or dominant groups more generally, through consent, they must first obtain leadership which is achieved through popular support. (Showstack Sassoon 1982: 120). However, leadership becomes a part of domination through the “process of the statis encompassing of society” (Showstack Sassoon 1982: 121, emphasis added). This means that leadership becomes hegemonic when it is co-opted by existing power structures (for example legal and bureaucratic structures), and once again becomes a tool of the elite. In this view, hegemony surfaces more as a strategy used by various groups, than as a totalizing structure. Hegemony nevertheless maintains power relations of domination and subordination, and the “process” involved in hegemonic constructions is reduced to its own perpetuation, thereby denying the possibility of resistance.
Buci-Glucksmann is careful to note that the interaction between consent and leadership producing hegemony is historically rooted. For instance, passive consent to leadership is often the outcome of passive revolutions (Showstack Sassoon 1982: 121). However passive revolution is not counter-hegemonic because it “[relies] upon the absence of popular initiative even if certain popular demands [are] satisfied ‘in small doses, legally, in a reformist way’, from above and by means of the state” (Showstack Sassoon 1982: 121).
Anthropological discussions of hegemony and resistance make different assumptions about the agency (and in its ideological form consciousness) of subordinated groups. An essentialized interpretation of hegemony has entailed the idea that subordinated groups operate within a false consciousness. On the premise of false consciousness, subordinated groups are unable to resist hegemonic structures because they do not participate in the creation of (and thus negotiation of) these structures. James Scott attempts to clarify the debate surrounding false consciousness by dividing it into thin and thick interpretations, which have strong parallels with Buci-Glucksmann’s passive and active consent respectively.
A thick interpretation of hegemony involves a subordinated group’s active consent to the values that subordinate them because these values are completely mystified by a dominant group (Scott 1990: 72). Scott’s thin interpretation of false consciousness rests on the argument that subordinated groups are aware of their position but do not believe they can resist powerful dominant groups. This interpretation is based on the idea of passive consent, or resignation, of subordinated groups, and consciousness in this paradigm is naturalized rather than mystified (Scott 1990: 72).
Scott questions thick false consciousness in that it precludes social change originating “from below” (1990: 78). He argues that if subordinated groups actively consent to the terms of their domination than hegemony becomes an internally solid structure requiring an “external shock” to resist. And yet, Scott notes, conflict is actually one of hegemony’s products, thereby nullifying its structural coherence. Conflict is generated by hegemony in the sense that subordinated groups assess claims that the naturalized “social order is also in their best interests” (Scott 1990: 77). He points to a history of internal resistance in the phenomena of millennial themes found in many subaltern ideologies (Scott 1990: 80). Millenarian groups “appropriate symbols of the dominant order but subject them to powerful inversions” (Gledhill 2000: 85). For example, Roger Keesing argued that Melanesian cargo cults, while millenarian in ideology, also utilized “a political analysis of European wealth and power” (Gledhill 2000: 85). In this view, even a thin version of false consciousness becomes less valid because it rests on the assumption that subordinated groups acquiesce to dominant ideologies. However, given the persistence of internal resistance, one might equally wonder why, historically, subordinated groups don’t acquiesce (Scott 1990: 79).
Given Scott’s rejection of false consciousness in both its thin and thick forms, he argues that hegemony can only exist under two conditions, both of which seem to be exceptions rather than a general rule. The first condition is if subalterns believe they will one day be the dominant group and therefore have an incentive to accept the social order (Scott 1990: 82). However, a significant amount of research shows that slaves, untouchables, and peasants don’t believe this (Scott 1990: 85). The second condition is if subalterns are “atomized and kept under close observation” (Scott 1990: 82). However, the extent of surveillance would have to leave virtually no room for discursive freedom. Scott refers to Foucault’s statement that “Solitude is the primary condition of total submission” (Scott 1990: 83). Rarely is such absolute solitude achieved. For example, the disposable income made available to Malay factory women has given rise to their “venturing beyond the socially confined circumstances of kampung [village] life” (Ong 1987: 200). In doing so, they have come into contact with “extrafactory influences” that interact with ideological constructions of gender and labor relations, and by extension, consciousness (Ong 1987: 195-196).
Scott helps to bring a more flexible view of resistance into the picture with his rejection of false consciousness. Hegemony is a construction for Scott, and he posits that “domination generates the social evidence that apparently confirms notions of hegemony” (1990: 77). This is accomplished by subordinated groups as well as dominant groups because subordinated groups have a “vested interest in avoiding any explicit display of insubordination” (Scott 1990: 86), while dominant groups want to maintain their privileged positions. Thus the appearance of hegemony (what Scott calls the “public transcript”) is a strategy used by both groups to negotiate power relations. This idea of strategy is significantly different from Showstack Sassoon’s cited above, because hegemony is the social construction of an ideological structure, and not an ideological structure in and of itself. As a social construction, subordinated groups are able to “force hegemony into ideology [and] the possibility for resistance becomes evident” (Goldstein 2003: 37).
One of the problems with previous theories on resistance was there tendency to be associated with radicalism and anti-systemic, overt revolutions. Just because resistance isn’t anti-systemic does not mean that there is consent (even resignation) to dominant ideologies. According to Scott the assumption that a lack of radical action necessarily implies a lack of radical ideology is a big leap (1990: 92). He develops his idea of strategies by noting that because “strategic action always looks upward, for that is frequently the only way in which it will gain a hearing” (Scott 1990: 93), subaltern resistance (conceived of as anti-systemic) often seems to reproduce “hegemonic” structures.
Aihwa Ong for example, discusses how female factory workers use traditional kampung gender constructions to mobilize male Malay youths in their defense vis-à-vis their factory managers. “Factory women on occasion manipulated their kinsmen’s sense of honor by gossiping and crying about mistreatment [in the factories]” (Ong 1987: 210). Several examples in Ong’s ethnography detail how male youths from the kampung attacked factory managers and effectively “black-listed” them upon hearing women’s stories of mistreatment. Ong notes that traditional kampung society privileged men as more rational and self-conscious beings in contrast to women who were generally viewed as irrational and carnal (1987: 87). From the standpoint of gender therefore, women emerged as a subordinate group.
The power laden symbolism that divides men and women in traditional kampung society seems to mimic the symbolic divide noted by Simone de Beauvoir in her now monumental feminist work The Second Sex (1952). Beauvoir posited that male/female relations persistently associated men with culture, transcendence, and, achieved status’, while women were constructed (by men) as nature, immanence, and ascribed status’. Sherry B. Ortner brought an anthropological perspective to Beauvoir’s alienated philosophies (which viewed unequal gendered relations from a white upper-middle class and western positioning without any critical afterthought on such a privileged position).
Ortner argues through a nature/culture dichotomy to illustrate “that woman is being identified with- or if you will, seems to be a symbol of- something that every culture devalues, something that every culture defines as being of a lower order of existence than itself” (Ortner 2004: 374). Like others before her, Ortner points out that a woman’s reproductive functions tie her, for a greater amount of time during her life than a man, to a domestic group (2004: 379). (Pregnancy and lactation are usually interpreted as a natural bond between women and children; women are children’s natural caregivers). Women’s domestic functions become associated with their naturalness in general and become a structural part of their devaluation.
Returning to Ong’s ethnography, Malay factory women’s manipulation of male youths at one level seems to reproduce dominant ideological structures that perceived men as superior to women, because crying and gossiping were “culturally consistent with their subordinate female status” (Ong 1987: 203). However, at another level, women are taking advantage of the already sensitive honor of males to improve their labor relations. Male honor in Ong’s ethnography is already sensitive because of women’s incorporation into the labor force. “Malay-Islamic practices governing marital relationships also places the wife under the shelter and moral authority of the husband” (Ong 1987: 88). Wives are expected to stay home and fill domestic roles because, according to Islamic marriage law, husbands are required to provide the complete economic livelihood for their families (Ong 1987: 88). With their transition into the factory however, women’s traditional domestic roles are threatened, and by extension men’s honor. Women’s strategic action looks up to men. In this sense women’s negotiation of the public transcript uses “prudence and formula” (Scott 1990: 92) considering that open resistance (against labor relations) could end in a firing or other forms of negative sanctions.
Scott refers to these calculated forms of resistance as “hidden transcripts” because they operate in areas hidden from the public transcript. However, “the hidden transcript is not just behind-the-scenes griping and grumbling; it is enacted in a host of down-to-earth, low-profile stratagems designed to minimize appropriation” (Scott 1990: 188). Ong provides the example of spirit possessions that occur in the factories of the Malay women she studied. “Malays believe that women lacking in spiritual vigilance become possessed by angry spirits (kena hantu) when the victims wander onto the sacred dwelling places of spirits” (Ong 1987: 202). The factory is symbolically associated with ideas of “dirty”, and by extension “haunting” (Ong 1987: 204). One factory worker offered the following explanation; “well, this used to be all jungle, it was a burial ground before the factory was built. The devil disturbs those who have weak constitutions” (Ong 1987: 207).
The first thing to be noted about spirit possession is that it operates under the idea that specifically women are possessed. This relates back to symbolic constructions of gender that characterize women as irrational, and therefore reflects women’s use of existing structures that subordinate them. The second aspect is that spirits that possess women are angry; this gives possessed women a powerful medium for protest which is also culturally sanctioned. Women physically struggled against supervisors who tried to control them and shouted violently. For example, “as they were being taken to ambulances, some victims screamed, ‘I will kill you, let me go!’” (Ong 1987: 205). In this respect, spirit possessions, as a hidden transcript, can be seen as a discursive space for women to voice their dissatisfaction and call “public attention to their subordinate position” (Ong 1987: 207).
However spirit possession as a hidden transcript does not only take the form of consciousness raising, it also mobilizes resources to improve women’s situations. The public transcript views women’s spirit possessions as “mass hysteria” and increasingly rationalizes it through a biomedical discourse (for example an insufficient breakfast results in a physical and mental fatigue leading to hysteria) (Ong 1987:205). Women who become possessed by spirits are thus sent home to rest, or to a nurse, giving them a break from the exigencies of factory work (Ong 1987: 206). (However, it should be noted that the factory managers implement informal limitations to these resources, after three spirit possessions women are dismissed).
Further, spirit possessions are capable of making statements beyond individual and everyday levels because they spread across the factory floor. Ong writes that in Malaysia,
“A second large-scale incident in 1978 involved some 120 operators in the microscope sections. The factory had to be shut down for three days and a spirit healer (bomoh) was hired to slaughter a goat on the premises. The American director wondered how he was to explain to corporate headquarters ‘that 8,000 hours of production were lost because someone saw a ghost’” (1987: 204).
This incident highlights how hidden transcripts have the potential to impact beyond their behind-the-scenes orientation. However, while American directors may be forced to assess women’s labor relations, working conditions remained largely unchanged. Thus Gledhill muses “there is a clear logical difference between ‘resistance’ which is merely concerned with improving the terms of oppression and that which strives to implant a new socio-political order” (2000: 90).
In fact Ong’s ethnography points to several of the limitations that Gledhill also notes in Scott’s theories. While Scott makes a strong argument for the agency of subaltern groups, his complete rejection of hegemony (by equating it with false consciousness) is also problematic. In fact Malay factory women use divers and contradictory strategies to oppose both male domination and oppressive labor relations characteristic of a capitalist economic system. Thus disposable income has given women a significant amount of power in negotiating their own marriages, and yet the source of that income takes the form oppressive labor relations (Ong 1987: 199). On the other hand, as was demonstrated above, women may also use their subordinated position as women to negotiate labor relations. The point is that neither of the hegemonic ideologies is ever completely contested, rather, a new subjectivity is formed “as much by educational practice, state agencies, and the media, as by the labor process” (Ong 1987: 196).
Hidden transcripts are the product of the “culture, history, [and] the ‘internal politics’ of subalterns (Gledhill 2000: 89). This brings us back into Buci-Glucksmann’s argument that hegemony as a strategy is rooted in history. New subjectivities are organic in the sense that relationships aren’t cut off from meaning production, and, by extension, change with experiences (Gledhill 2000: 89). Hegemony and resistance seem to be characterized more by interaction than by opposition, as do relationships of domination and subordination.
Donna Goldstein echoes this view in her ethnography of women in an urban Brazilian favela (slum). She argues that the black humor of women who are marginalized across lines of class, race, gender, and sexuality constitute one of their hidden transcripts. However, she notes that “humor as an expression and deployment of (class) power, is potentially both conservative and liberatory” (Goldstein 2003: 7). She argues that domination/subordination paradigms which view hidden transcripts through their potential to either organize or disorganize social arrangement and ideologies, could be replaced by analyzing hidden transcripts through a theory of power (Goldstein 2003: 7). This framework would certainly make room for more fluidity between groups interlocked in fluctuating power-embedded relationships.
As in much of the anthropological literature on hegemony, theories of resistance have tended to essentialize the consciousness of subaltern groups and in doing so have narrowed the framework for anthropological analysis. Women’s activities and relationships may be an important area that could reconstitute simple dichotomous paradigms of domination/subordination, and hegemony/resistance. The duality of women’s subordination in capitalist economies that Ong illustrates in her ethnography highlights how intersecting relationships produced in specific contexts characterize subaltern resistance, and power relations.





Works Cited


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