Everyday Resistance

This book studies those who, in various domains of life, are resisting the increasingly harsh day-to-day pressures of “late capitalism,” centering mainly on French examples. Far from the global euphoria of the sixties and seventies, everyday people are trying to loosen the grip of injustice in very concrete ways: people experiencing homelessness try to occupy and live in empty buildings; collectives of small farmers and consumers avoid long (and costly) commercial supply chains to defend their common interests; students and teachers organize to prevent the expulsion of undocumented migrants; and activists in the free software movement fight for the “common ownership” of software and of the Internet. Through civil disobedience in the midst of daily life, people are trying to resist, work against, and change laws that protect the interests of firms and corporations considered socially or ecologically unfair.

“Everyday Resistance makes it an especially innovative, interesting, and ultimately useful read for scholars who are otherwise unable to access, let alone assess, current trends in the Francophone literature.” (Kai A. Heidemann, Mobilization, Vol. 25 (1), March, 2020)

“A truly exceptional, insightful, and wholly original conceptual examination of “real existing” resistance in the 21^st century under difficult conditions. The essays manage to elaborate a deep understanding of the necessarily fragmented, experimental, and nevertheless inspiring utopian spirit in the absence of totalizing ideologies.” (James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science, Professor of Anthropology, and co-Director of the Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, USA)

“Broad, innovative and very stimulating, Everyday Resistance is the book we lacked on French progressive social movements, seen from a practical and a theoretical point of view. This book also casts new insights in political philosophy and sociology. Revisiting anarchism, Marxism, feminism, and beyond, this book reformulates old questions by tackling contemporary problems such as gender, ecology, migrations, free software networks, civic disobedience, precariat, or solidarity economy. Thanks to pragmatism, its deep originality is to offer a really new reading grid for social movement studies.” (Luc Boltanski, Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), France)

“A truly exceptional, insightful, and wholly original conceptual examination of “real existing” resistance in the 21^st century under difficult conditions. The essays manage to elaborate a deep understanding of the necessarily fragmented, experimental, and nevertheless inspiring utopian spirit in the absence of totalizing ideologies.” (James C. Scott, Sterling Professor of Political Science, Professor of Anthropology, and co-Director of the Agrarian Studies Program, Yale University, USA)

      

“Broad, innovative and very stimulating, Everyday Resistance is the book we lacked on French progressive social movements, seen from a practical and a theoretical point of view. This book also casts new insights in political philosophy and sociology. Revisiting anarchism, Marxism, feminism, and beyond, this book reformulates old questions by tackling contemporary problems such as gender, ecology, migrations, free software networks, civic disobedience, precariat, or solidarity economy. Thanks to pragmatism, its deep originality is to offer a really new reading grid for social movement studies.” (Luc Boltanski, Director of Studies at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS), France)

Bruno Frère is FNRS Senior Research Associate and Professor at the University of Liege, Belgium, and at Paris I Pantheon Sorbonne, France. He is the author or editor of, among other publications, Epistémologie de la Sociologie (with Marc Jacquemain, 2008), Le Nouvel Esprit Solidaire (2009), Résister au Quotidien (with Marc Jacquemain, 2013), Le Tournant de la Théorie Critique (2015) and Repenser l’émancipation (to be published in 2020, with Jean-Louis Laville).

Marc Jacquemain is Professor of Sociology at the University of Liege, Belgium. He is the author of La raison névrotique (2002) and Le sens du juste (2005). He is co-editor of, among others, Epistémologie de la sociologie (with Bruno Frère, 2008), Résister au Quotidien (with Bruno Frère, 2013) and Engagements actuels, actualité des engagements (with Pascal Delwit, 2010).