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Word count: 3994

Exam number: B064985

Locating Resistance in the Spectrum of Power:

Gramsci, Foucault and James C. Scott
This essay will deal with the topic of resistance and power. Specifically, it is my
intention to enquire about the role of the former in relation to different
definitions of the latter. I intend to do so by exploring three different
approaches by three different theorists: Foucault, James C. Scott and Gramsci
(this one, through the concept of hegemony), to then explore their advantages
and limitations for explaining resistance in the particular context of prisons;
which has been said to include various forms that exceed the most classical
idea of an organized, collective, overt action (Crewe, 2009, p. 96). By
approaching to this, the essay aims to understand first, the location of
resistance in relation to each of the conceptualizations of power. And second,
having done this, to approach briefly its scope and limits in the particular
context of detention and the sociology of prisons.
Although studies about the experience of imprisonment appear to reaffirm that
inmates are constantly engaging with the regime to construct themselves as
agents (Bosworth & Carrabine, 2001), prison scholars raise awareness of the
problems that a nave definition could easily entail. Resistance could totalize
every action and obscure other subjective strategies like coping, surviving,
accepting, complying or other types of individual and collective agency (Crewe,
2

2009, p. 97). Locating resistance in different theoretic frameworks is, therefore,

relevant for addressing the suitability of the concept. Depending on where it
stands, it will be possible to connect the experiences and actions of prisoners
within a larger context in which those practices take place. Resistance is not a
phenomenon in abstract. It seems difficult to think of it as a self-contingent
phenomena when it is precisely its oppositional basis that gives it a meaning.
As shown by Lila Abu-Lughod for the case of Bedouin women (1990), the forms
of power appear to be deeply linked to the shape of resistance.

Antonio Gramsci and the concept of hegemony.

In a historical perspective the term hegemony had been used widely in Russian
socialist and social-democratic contexts long before Gramsci. In fact, Lenin
himself defined it as the wakening concept and practice in charge of turning
proletariat from a mere guild into a proper class. Hegemony was the
consciousness of the historically privileged condition of the working class, and
its development should promote its leadership towards revolution (Anderson,
1976, pp. 16-17). Although, as Perry Anderson suggests, it is unlikely that
Gramsci was fully aware of the debates around the Russian use of hegemony, it
is nonetheless possible that he had become acquainted with its uses after the
Fourth World Communist Congress of 1922 where for, what seems to be the
first time, hegemony was described as a resource of the dominant bourgeoisie
over the proletarian masses. As Anderson explains, it is in this moment when it
first stopped being seen as a property of the proletariat and also started
describing a trait of dominant ruling classes. Ignoring its weight in the class
struggle, it was said, could lead to the bourgeois victory in convincing the
working masses about the separation between the economic and the political
sphere, and this would confine the oppressed to a corporative framework that
would not threaten the bourgeois order (Anderson, 1976, p. 18). The origins of
the Gramscian notion of the term might have resulted from this background.

Although, as a concept, power does not seem to be one of Gramscis analytic

preoccupations1, his use of the Marxist notion of hegemony, instead, can be
seen as one of his most important contributions to the Marxist thought about
the interplay between social and cultural spheres (Williams, 1960). As it will be
described below, Gramscian hegemony is interesting because it allows us to
point at a link between compliance and domination, and complementarily
sheds light into the role of opposition.
From a theoretical point of view hegemony intends to formulate in Marxist
terms the role of cultural instruments in achieving and holding power (Williams,
1960, p. 594). In a sense, Gramsci understands bourgeois hegemony as a form
of power over2. It is the abstract effect of domination that produces consensus
and prevents a consciousness of class, whilst stimulating the rule of
bourgeoisie. The important shift of his conception does not reside in having
decentralized it from previous proletarian versions, but on exploring it
systematically as a core structure of the domination.
In this sense, hegemony implied a condition in process (Storey, 2009, p. 79).
The ongoing mechanism allowed ruling classes to become developed agencies
of political socialization (Femia, 1975, p. 34); an outcome of the interaction
between structure and superstructure (Williams, 1960) that produced values
and categories which subordinated the working class to consensus. Bourgeois
domination combines in Gramsci rule, force and leadership and this leads to an
active involvement of the subordinated in the dynamics of oppression
(Gramsci, 1992, p. 423). The concept intended to dethrone the strong influence
of economism to put up front cultural struggle (Gramsci, 1992, p. 195) and
hence, it could be seen as the reformulation of the economic notion of
alienation in the social and cultural spheres (Williams, 1960, p. 593).
1 As it indiscriminately describes different things. Sometimes related to
domination/oppression (Gramsci, 1992, p. 428), or to an immanent condition of political
structures (Gramsci, 1992, p. 36), for example.

2 Which is the type of conceptualization that correlates power with negative

forms of domination, coercion, control, surveillance, etc.

Regarding resistance and opposition, however, hegemony does not prescribe

an unavoidable condition of submission. Rather, as Joseph Femia argued, the
concept itself does more than illuminate the complexity and explain the
tenacity of bourgeois rule; it also provides the basis for a theory of the
revolutionary party, its organization, strategy, and aims (1975, p. 35). For
Gramsci, as hegemony involves the ideological3 apparatus of the ruling class,
but this does not necessarily imply exclusivity in its bourgeois production; it is
precisely through opposing cultural and intellectual consciousness in the
working classes that the type of dominant hegemony of bourgeois can be
turned into a hegemony of the proletariat. By arguing the important role of
communist

intellectuals

and

the

revolutionary

aspect

of

promoting

consciousness in civil society, Gramsci opened the space for a kind of

resistance that would break a cycle of subordination and permit the production
of a gradual proletarian hegemony (Femia, 1975).
Resistance would be positioned in Gramscian terms in a binary opposition to a
ruling power. Its main aim would be to influence it to the point of producing a
drastic change. Bourgeois Hegemony is to be faced with revolutionary
consciousness of the conditions of domination and, in fact, of the necessity of a
different proletarian hegemony. As such, the forms of resistance could not be
understood as shaped by the interaction with power, but as a natural
characteristic emerging from the objective conditions of the proletariat and
more

importantly

driven

by

its

historical

mission

of

liberation.

The

consciousness that comes from opposing hegemony pictures a collective basis

in which subjects are moved by the very same reasons. Gramsci says in this
respect:
Because, basically, if yesterday the subaltern element was a thing, today it is
no longer a thing but an historical person, a protagonist; if yesterday it was not
responsible, because "resisting" a will external to itself, now it feels itself to be

3 Although the word ideological, for him, represents a passive, totalizing

concept that did not take into account the practical involvement of
hegemonized groups. (Gramsci, 1992, p. 424)

responsible because it is no longer resisting but an agent, necessarily active

and taking the initiative. (Gramsci, 1992, p. 337)
At an abstract level however, hegemony is the effect of any ruling in shaping
culture and values. This does mean that it is not a historical property of one
single

class.

Conversely,

resistance

potentially

stands

as

somehow

oppositional force that, in fact, is a property of subordinates in opposing any

hegemony. Resistance facilitates transitions between dominated and rulers.
Eventually, after a long process of social and economic changes, hegemony
would take the shape of the previously subversive dominated class. In his
analysis of capitalism this means the path towards communism and the
dictatorship of proletariat. Hegemony is interesting but puzzling. It describes
that consent does not necessarily imply absolute subordination but, is it
possible that resistance could reproduce hegemony?
Foucault: is resistance everywhere?
For Foucault, power is not wielded to individuals or institutions. It does not
reside exclusively in the hands of a sovereign or the state. On the contrary, it is
seen as agentless and always present in social relations. Power is a mode of
action which does not act directly and immediately on others (Foucault, 1982,
p. 789) and which is organized in strategies, whose mechanism are possible
to interpret. It is therefore ubiquitous but this condition arises not because it
embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere (Foucault, 1978,
p. 93). In opposition to the versions that placed consciousness at the centre
of the production of meaning (Hearn, 2012, p. 88), much like in Gramsci.
Foucault emphasized the centrality of historically produced discourses. His
notion of power was, in this sense, interested on understanding the way in
which subjects were constituted and subjected by historically identifiable
practices and discourses. The notion of a consciousness, was in effect false
as it was the product of power, and as a concept, an effect of it.
Discourse establishes modes of perception and creates possibilities of
understanding the social world. Subjects are, thus at the same time, objects of
power and multipliers of its effects. Foucaults notion of power according to this
is closely related to the construction of knowledge. In fact, in his theory, both
6

are almost inseparable and that is evident in his famous specification of the
term power/knowledge.
However, if the subject is to be fully encompassed by discourses, could any
kind of agency be plausible? And, specifically, if the exercise of resistance is
effectively related to agency, could one imply that resistance is absent, or at
least obsolete? It seems that Foucault would respond, no. On the contrary,
references to the concept are common in some of his famous writings and,
although it was not systematically developed, a number of approaches were
carried out. For Foucault, resistance is bonded to power. In a famous quote on
the history of sexuality (1978) he even stated that where there is power, there
is resistance (p. 95). The link is not weak. Although the statement does not
describe if one is dependent on the other, the relation is defined as causal.
Following the famous sentence, Foucault explains:
() and yet, or rather consequently, this resistance is never in a position of
exteriority in relation to power. Should it be said that one is always "inside"
power, there is no "escaping" it, there is no absolute outside where it is
concerned () (Foucault, 1978, p. 95)
As power is diffuse, it cannot be reduced to specific expressions of dominance
or subjugation; these are all just forms it takes. For Foucault power does not
have a unique shape and it is better understood as the multiplicity of force
relations immanent in the sphere in which they operate and which constitute
their own organization (Foucault, 1978, p. 92). Power is not emanating from a
single point, and therefore resistance should not be uniform.
Resistance stands in no opposition to power, it is a function of it, Foucault
seems to clarify. Because he understands that power has a relational
character (Foucault, 1978, p. 95) it is possible to place a seemingly
oppositional concept, as a confirmation of the irreducibly multiple and
heterogeneous forms of power flowing in every direction within the social
fabric (Medina, 2011, p. 10). As the premise that power is ubiquitous intends
to transcend the dichotomy of powerful/powerless (Gaventa, 2003) it cannot be
affirmed that resistance is against it. In contrast to Gramscis version, Foucault
does not attribute any liberating effect to it because it could not be located
7

outside of the field of power. Resistance characterizes a variety of outcomes

present in the strategies that embody power. All of them would have in
common the fact that they are related to refusal. Nonetheless, this refusal is
not directly linked with a universal and unique locus (Foucault, 1978, p. 96).
Resistance is according to his view, a first step towards explaining a possibility
of agency. Discourses, Foucault would say, are not once and for all subservient
or raised up against it [power] we must make allowance for the complex and
unstable process whereby discourse can be both an instrument and an effect of
power, but also a hindrance, a stumbling-block, a point of resistance and a
starting point for an opposing strategy. Discourse transmits and produces
power; it reinforces, but also undermines and exposes it, renders it fragile and
makes it possible to thwart it.
How the analysis of expressions of resistance could be done, according to
Foucault, is a matter of understanding the networks of power relations in which
this

multiplicity

of

resistances

are

imbued.

Therefore,

specificity

and

positionality of the agents should be taken into account (Medina, 2011).

Nevertheless, it seems unresolved to me how everyday interaction could be
addressed in this sense. If Foucault seems to open space for locating
resistance, he does not seem to offer at least in the history of sexuality- a way
to narrow it down to agents, or to understand it in its complexity. Instead, in a
different text he reduces resistance as an epistemological and, almost
methodological, tool to approach the study of power relations; a chemical
catalyst (Foucault, 1982, p. 780) he said. If this represents a partial suggestion
that different forms of power match forms resistance (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014),
it is a broad interpretation and not a theoretical preoccupation of the author.
Conversely, James C. Scott is completely committed with developing resistance
theoretically.
James C. Scott: between quiescence and revolt
To understand resistance, Scott borrows the metaphor of a theatre play. In this
version, social interaction is performative and cannot be properly approached
only by focusing on the superficial, evident, and open actions between actors,
since these represent only a public transcript; a social act that could not

account for the whole picture. Focusing on these on-stage interactions just
encompass one side of a complex dynamic between subjects. In this respect,
as Scott is especially interested on power-laden situations (Scott, 1990, p. 41)
one specification is made: the conditions of distribution of power largely frame
interaction. Under this lens he identifies two basic actors, the powerholders and
the subordinates sometimes also called, powerless (Scott, 1990, p. 3). The
division is fruitful, not only because it lets us start addressing his notion of
power (closely related to a negative form of power over), but because it is the
basis for a further division that Scott inserts in his separation of the unity of
subjectivities.
If, according to Scott, these two basic public (on-stage) and hidden (off-stage)
transcripts are effectively present in the world of the dominant and the
dominated alike, the public sphere is always dominated by the powerful. In
order to preserve control over the relation, the powerful acts as if he governs,
and the subordinated should respond to this with deference. The public
transcript is thus a self-portrait of dominant elites as they would have seen
themselves (Scott, 1990, p. 18). Their capacity to dominate and a somehow
calculated compliance by the powerless, create a scene of acquiescence that
naturalizes power relations, but most importantly for Scott, that allow the
subordinates to build a space for themselves without risking their safety. The
powerless disappear from the oppressive sight of the powerful, precisely where
their picture seems more evident. The transcripts are lopsided. They are
different because by definition they aim at different audiences (Scott, 1990, p.
18) and search different goals. The powerful are immersed in a narcissistic
fairytale to convince of their capacity to dominate and the subordinated are
trying to feed that illusion by appearing to comply.
For Scott, deference is just the safest option to preserve an autonomous life.
Regarding this conceptualization of two rationally opposed interests, natural to
each part, he identifies four possible scenarios of political discourse among
subordinate groups (Scott, 1990, p. 18). In the first one, the dominated
reproduce the flattering image of elites, and in this sense they embrace the
public transcript of deference and compliance. For his part, a second one
represents the hidden transcript, as such. Therefore, it is the space where, free
9

of the gaze of power, a sharply dissonant culture is possible (Scott, 1990, p.

18). A third one, is a strategic standing point between the former two where, in
despite of the presence of the powerful, the subordinates employ doublemeaning, rumour, gossip, mockery, folktales, songs, rituals and several other
dissimulated forms of defying authority in anonymity, to protect the actors
whilst advancing their real thoughts against the powerful. This would imply a
subtle public expression of the hidden transcript (because, by definition, this
seems to be its only purpose, to defy domination). Finally, a fourth form of
discourse is that of the speak out; the rupture of the political cordon
sanitaire (Scott, 1990, p. 19) in the form of open defiance.
Resistance for Scott transcends a simple overt, collective opposition. All these
possible outcomes in the interaction with power (partly on the basis that for
him this later concept equates domination) are forms of resistance. In contrast
to a view of political action as a monolithic expression of open conflict, he aims
at an understanding of a broader spectrum (broad enough to be described
almost as a univocal casual effect) of practices that fall under a category of
infrapolitics of the subordinate (Scott, 1990). Perhaps, one of his most famous
quotes summarizes his area of interest as the immense political terrain that
lies between quiescence and revolt (Scott, 1990, p. 199).
Resistance is also an everyday practice, even in moments when subalterns
seem to comply. Due to the conditions of domination it might be advantageous
for them to conceal their real interests and opinions about the dominants, but
this does not mean that opposition is not exercised effectively, under
conditions of oppression (Scott, 1989). The difference lies in the form in which
subordinates resist and not in their nature. While overt forms intend more de
facto gains, everyday resistance is more symbolical and targets at formal de
jure achievements (Scott, 1989, p. 34).
Conclusions regarding some ideas about prison sociology
Power for Scott, in contrast to Foucaults version, is mostly exercised through
the hands of an elite. There is a collective agent and the very differentiation
between powerful and powerless is telling in this sense. Resistance is in a
complicated position: is resistance part of power relations and a practice that
10

does not involve power itself? Is power not exercised through resistance? What
would that imply for the ontological status of these practices? As an advocate
of power over (Tilly, 1991), Scott offers a concept in which domination obscures
the scope of forms of power to, and therefore this questions are unresolved.
Although in some excerpts he seems to define resistance as a practice of
power (Scott, 1990, p. 93), most of the argumentation follows the other line.
Power is lacking in the weaker counterpart4.
Contrary to Foucault, resistance is not even placed inside the spectrum of
power (although Foucaults diffuse version does not necessarily solve this
problem, either). Closer to Gramsci, resistance in Scott stands in opposition to
power and the basis for its occurrence is argued by a logic antagonism with the
dominant. Oppositely, however, in Gramscis terms resistance is potentially a
different form of hegemony. If not something else, I interpret this as a possible
attempt to conceptualize a kind of practice that is something more than a mere
response to domination. Notwithstanding that understanding resistance as
practice of reproducing hegemony seems unlikely in his terms.
For the specific context of prisons, Gramscis and Scotts notions of resistance
offer possibilities and limitations. On the one hand, the literature appears to
disagree with the idea of a unitary ideological consciousness driving all forms
of resistance. In fact, if resisting is said to depend to a certain point on a
collective basis (Crewe, 2009, p. 227), and some forms of resistance intend to
challenge the relations of power by reasserting a common identity (Ugelvik,
2014, p. 78), it is also said that inmates have different levels of affiliation with
the institutional device, and this condition seems to shape the method as well
as the final aim of oppositional actions (Crewe, 2009). Whenever the subject
becomes obsolete, because every act of resistance exclusively takes into
account one monolithic dimension of shared consciousness, these complexities
seem to be obscured.
On the other hand, respectively, inmates engage actively with their institutions
(Bosworth & Carrabine, 2001) and in this sense, Scott expands the possibilities
4 See (Scott, 1989, p. 52)

11

to understand some of the expressions of prisoners as practices of resistance,

even when they do not take the form of overt, organized action. Also, his
categorization of resistance is based in a common condition of domination, and
although this is not completely generalizable, it seems to be very plausible in
some prison contexts (Crewe, 2009, p. 97). As for Gramsci, theoretically,
hegemony opens space for understanding the influence of resistance in
remodeling the arena of power relations. His idea of an intellectual resistance
depicts a domination that is accessible and eventually, transformable.
Finally, it could be said that both scholars describe resistance in such a way
that

it is possible to understand a certain interactional basis (for Scott more

than for Gramsci) and methodologically this offers an opportunity for applying
it in more concrete manners.
Regarding this last point Foucault seems more problematic. Although he locates
resistance in a conceptualization of power, and gives broad clues of its
definition5, he does not develop the concept theoretically and this represents a
major obstacle. For example, in contrast to what resistance would mean for
Foucault, Crewe has criticized the way in which the former describes prison
power as one that produces homogenous effects (Crewe, 2009, p. 232).
Deeper comparisons of the ample intellectual production of Foucault should
have to focus on these seemingly contradictory accounts. Personally, I think
that the definition of resistance in the History of Sexuality Volume 1 (Foucault,
1978) could be more a product of the aim of debating the repressive
hypothesis of power6 and first glimpse of agency in his theories. In this sense
some Foucaultian studies represent a fertile terrain of support 7.

5 For example by implying that there is a plurality of resistances, each of them

a special case: resistances that are possible, necessary, improbable; others
that are spontaneous, savage, solitary, concerted, rampant, or violent; still
others that are quick to compromise, interested, or sacrificial; by definition,
they can only exist
in the strategic field of power relations. (Foucault, 1978, p. 96)
6
A major goal of the book (Kelly, 2013)
12

Foucault seems to be able to address what is said, what is possible, what is

meaningful as well as how it lies apart from the unthinkable and
indecipherable. [But] he gave us no idea of how, in everyday life, one comes to
incorporate those possibilities and impossibilities as part of oneself (Hacking,
2004, p. 300). Although in defining the contours of institutional power Foucault
provides advantages, his lack of emphasis on interaction limits the scope of his
notion of resistance. As such it becomes difficult from Foucaults perspective to
address particularities of the exercise of power on an everyday basis. Foucault
s notion of power is based on a discourse in abstract (Hacking, 2004), which
although beneficial for an analysis of forms of prison power, does not seem to
be able to cope with its complex paths on the ground.

7
As for example in (Ugelvik, 2014) or (Lilja & Vinthagen, 2014)
13

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