Review: Language and the "Arts of Resistance"

Author(s): Susan Gal

Source: Cultural Anthropology, Vol. 10, No. 3 (Aug., 1995), pp. 407-424
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the American Anthropological Association
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Review Essay
Language
and the "Arts of Resistance"
Susan Gal
University of Chicago
James Scott's latest book, Domination and the Arts
of
Resistance: Hidden
Transcripts (1990),
is
certainly
instructive for
anthropologists
and is studded
with
stimulating insights
about
power.
Nevertheless,
it is a
deeply
flawed work.
The book was
published
several
years ago
and has been
widely
reviewed in
journals
of
political
science and
sociology
where the
major
issues of contention
have been Scott's
arguments
about the nature of
hegemony,
the
rationality
of
political
action,
and the
logic
of
explaining
revolutions
(see,
for
example,
Mitchell 1990 and
Tilly 1991).
However,
the book is at least as much about the
political significance
of
speech.
It
analyzes
the situated nature of
political expression,
the
relationship
among speech,
belief,
and
ideology
in
everyday power
relations,
and the
politi-
cal
efficacy
of talk. And it is
exactly
the
language-related concepts
introduced
in the book-such as
transcript
and
infrapolitics-that
are
having
the widest in-
fluence,
appearing
with
increasing frequency
in
writings
about local
politics
and
the
political
meaning
of
linguistic
and cultural
practices.
For this
reason,
my
aim
is to discuss Scott's work for what it
says
and assumes about
language
and
power. Ironically,
it is
just
this
aspect
of the book that has not
yet
been
seriously
and
critically
reviewed.
Domination and the Arts
ofResistance ambitiously attempts
to theorize the
nature of communication across lines of economic
power.
Scott's broader aim
is to
"suggest
how we
might
more
successfully
read,
interpret,
and understand
the often
fugitive political
conduct of subordinate
groups" (1990:xii).
He ex-
plicitly rejects
the
currently
common
assumption
in neo-Marxist
literature,
as
well as in mainstream
political
science,
that subordinate
groups acquiesce
to
economic
systems
that are
manifestly against
their interests because
they
come
to believe in a dominant
ideology
that
legitimates
or naturalizes the
power
of
ruling
elites. Whether in the
simplistic
form of "false consciousness" and cul-
tural
consensus,
or in more subtle stories about cultural
hegemony
or
"hegemonic incorporation,"
these theories look to
ideological
mechanisms for
Cultural
Anthropology 10(3):407-424. Copyright
?
1995,
American
Anthropological
Association.
407
408 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
the
explanation
of
political quiescence
in situations of
exploitation
and
inequal-
ity. Rejecting
such theories and the
image
of
passive
subordination that
they
suggest,
Scott's earlier research
among Malay peasants
documented the
politi-
cal effects of
apparently
trivial
everyday
actions,
such as
poaching, foot-drag-
ging,
and
pilfering.
In an influential theoretical
move,
he described these activi-
ties as
peasants' disguised attempts
to resist and thwart the
appropriation
of
their
labor,
property,
or
production (Scott 1985).
Scott's current book differs from his earlier work as well as the work of
many
other critics of "dominant
ideology"
theories
(see
Abercrombie et al.
1980)
in that he focuses on
language
and
ideology.
His
major
recommendation
for better
understanding
the
apparent political
consent of subordinate
groups
is
to examine how
power
relations affect what
people say
to different social audi-
ences. The
appearance
of
consent,
he
argues,
is
produced by
the
practical
and
material
pressure
on subordinates to refrain from
"speaking
truth to
power"
(Scott 1990:i).
There is
vastly
more resistance to dominant
ideologies
than re-
searchers have
reported
because
they
have failed to notice the "hidden tran-
scripts"
that
express
resistance and the hidden social sites at which such tran-
scripts
are created and acted out. When resistance occurs "in
public,"
in front of
the
powerful,
scholars have failed to note it because of the
subtle,
evasive
speech
genres
in which it is
routinely expressed.
These
genres
of
"ideological
resis-
tance,"
along
with the
disguised
forms of economic resistance such as
poaching,
deserve
special
attention,
he
argues. Together they
form what Scott calls the "in-
frapolitics
of the
powerless,"
which is the
indispensable
and
revealing precursor
of those elaborate institutional
political
actions,
such as revolutions and the for-
mation of social
movements,
that are the more usual
object
of social science.
Scott's work is
potentially
of
great
interest to readers of Cultural Anthro-
pology
for a number of reasons.
First,
he is
attempting
to understand familiar
subject
matter:
communication,
everyday
talk,
and ritual in contexts of
unequal
power.
Second,
Scott relies
heavily
on
anthropological
research,
particularly
studies of social
interaction,
sociolinguistics,
folklore,
and a
range
of
perform-
ance
genres,
to
provide supportive
evidence for his
conceptual
edifice. What he
identifies as novel
insights
and observations about these
phenomena
will often
sound familiar to those who have been
reading
the
anthropological
literature of
the last decade. This is in
part
because his endeavor resembles the
attempts
within
anthropology
to
reinterpret linguistic practices
not
only
as
patterned
cul-
tural difference but as
expressions
of
speakers'
involvement in
large-scale
rela-
tions of
unequal power,
often as
signs
of resistance to dominant
linguistic
forms
and the values
they
encode
(summarized
in Gal
1989). Third,
while
tacitly
in-
spired by conceptions
of domination and resistance borrowed from
Gramsci,
his
followers,
and
critics,
Scott's
specific conceptual proposals rely
on a much more
familiar set of
metaphors
drawn
directly
from
everyday language
use:
ideology
is
figured
as
transcript, on-stage
or
off-stage
talk, libretto,
performance,
and dia-
lect.
However,
despite
these
apparent points
of
convergence
and
superficial
similarity,
Scott's book
actually
moves in
quite
a different direction than the
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 409
theoretical
development
of recent
anthropological approaches
to
language.
A
critique
of
Scott, therefore,
provides
the occasion to discuss new
analyses
of
language
and
power, showing by comparison
how
they diverge
from what
is,
in
fact,
the more traditional
approach
found in Scott's book.
Most
generally,
Scott relies on unexamined and
simplified images
of
sup-
posedly
unmediated face-to-face communication as
guiding metaphors
in un-
derstanding
the
production,
dissemination,
and effects of
ideology.
I will
argue
here that this basic
conceptual
move is
misguided, leading
him to misunderstand
the
ethnographic
materials he uses and to omit some of the most
intriguing ques-
tions about the nature of
language
in the
moder
world. A characteristic feature
of the works I will cite in
opposition
to Scott's
approach
is that
they
understand
linguistic
forms,
practices,
and their effects-whether
dominating,
resistant,
or
hegemonic-to
be
importantly
constructed and mediated
by linguistic
ideolo-
gies
that
vary
across
space
and
history (see,
for
example, Kroskrity
et al.
1992;
Woolard and Schieffelin
1994).
In what
follows,
I will first
explicate
Scott's more
specific proposals
about
the
relationship among ideology, "transcripts,"
and
domination,
and then out-
line four basic criticisms of this work.
First,
in
proposing
the idea of hidden tran-
scripts,
Scott
develops
a notion of the natural
(precultural, presemiotic)
interact-
ing
self that is at odds with recent
understandings
about the role of
linguistic
ideologies
and cultural
conceptions
in the
production
of self and emotion. Sec-
ond,
the
major analytical categories
he uses-dominant and subordinate-are
so
broadly generalized
over
space
and time that
important
cultural differences
between forms of
power
cannot be
captured
in his scheme.
Third,
Scott's central
term,
public,
is of considerable interest for students of
language,
social interac-
tion and
ideology, yet
it is
drastically
undertheorized in this
book,
and its
prob-
lematic
ideological aspects
are thus made invisible.
Fourth,
although
his
princi-
pal
aim is to
explicate
the
political significance
of talk-its
significance
as
constitutive
"performative"
acts-Scott's
analyses
of
linguistic phenomena
ex-
plore only
the referential or
representational aspects
of
language,
and even
within this narrowed
perspective,
fail
utterly
to
grapple
with
grammatical
and
pragmatic complexity.
The
possibility
that
grammatical categories
could con-
tribute to tacit
hegemony
is
ignored; pragmatic strategies
such as
ambiguity
or
irony
are assumed to have intrinsic functions such as subversion or
resistance,
regardless
of the
linguistic ideologies
and cultural contexts in which such
prac-
tices are embedded.
The Book's
Argument
Scott starts with the
observation,
taken from his own
experience,
that
peo-
ple
are careful in their
speech
to those who have
power
over them.
Complaints,
opinions,
and
responses
that would be
imprudent
if made to the
powerful
are
often choked
back,
and such
"repressed speech"
is redirected to others. On those
rare occasions when
anger
and
indignation
overcome such sensible
discretion,
a
feeling
of elation is
likely
to follow. In the effort to
systematize
and theorize
this
insight,
he draws his
examples very broadly:
from studies of
slavery,
serf-
410 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
dom,
and caste
subordination,
patriarchal gender
relations, colonialism, racism,
state
socialism,
and total institutions such as
jails
and
prisoner-of-war camps.
On the basis of this wide
array
of
evidence,
he
argues
that
Every
subordinate
group
creates,
out of its
ordeal,
a "hidden
transcript"
that
represents
a
critique
of
power spoken
behind the back of the dominant. The
powerful,
for their
part,
also
develop
a hidden
transcript representing
the
practices
and claims of their rule that cannot be
openly
avowed.
[Scott 1990:xii]
Scott's initial scheme thus
posits
four
separate transcripts,
with
powerful
and
subordinate
groups
each
having
both a hidden and a
public
form.
The hidden
transcript
of the subordinate is
largely
an
emotionally
fueled
response
to
domination;
the
practice
of domination creates the hidden
transcript
(p. 27). Characteristically,
this creation occurs in a
range
of autonomous social
sites that are cloistered from the surveillance and interference of the
powerful:
in slave
quarters,
untouchable
villages,
and the taverns of the
working
class.
Such sites are not
automatically
available;
they
must be won and
continually
de-
fended
by
various kinds of social
struggle.
It follows that the
ordinarily
observ-
able relations between subordinate and dominant
groups represent
the encoun-
ter of the
public transcript
of the dominant and that of the subordinate
(p. 13).
The
subordinate,
in these
public
encounters,
are coerced
by
material constraints
to defer to the
dominant,
or to flatter and
cajole
them.
Alternatively,
the subor-
dinate
may
enact the
image
of themselves
proffered by
the dominant in order to
demand the
goods, rights,
and
privileges
that the dominant
group's
own
public
(legitimating) ideology implies
are due to those who are the
proper subjects
of
their rule. It is thus often in the interest of the subordinate to maintain their def-
erential
public transcript,
even
though they
do not believe
it,
especially
if
open
rebellion is seen as a
practical impossibility.
The weak are most
likely
to resist
in devious
ways,
without
any open
confrontation
(p. 86).
What can be
part
of
any public transcript
is also a matter of
struggle.
Scott
points
out that "the
capacity
of dominant
groups
to
prevail
... in
defining
and
constituting
what counts as the
public transcript
and what as
offstage
is ... no
small
part
of their
power" (p. 14).
As this
quote
makes
clear,
the
intriguing
no-
tion of four
separate transcripts,
offered
early
in the
book,
collapses
later on into
a more familiar
configuration: although
contestations often
occur,
dominant
groups largely
control what can be said and done in the
single public transcript,
a
single publicly acknowledged "reality."
It is of central
importance
to Scott that while the assertion of this
reality
may
fool the
dominant,
working
as a kind of
"self-hypnosis
within
ruling groups
to buck
up
their
courage, improve
their cohesion"
(p.67),
the weak are not taken
in. For the
weak,
the
public transcript
is,
at
most,
a "dramatization
of
power
re-
lations that is not to be confused with
ideological hegemony" (p.
66-67;
empha-
sis is
original).
In
chapters
2 and
3,
Scott marshals a wide
array
of often subtle
ethnographic, literary,
and historical
examples-rituals,
conversations,
pro-
tests,
parades
and other
gatherings, petitioning
of
monarchs,
everyday
visual
and audible
displays
of rank and deference-which in each case can be under-
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 411
stood as evidence of such a
public transcript, jointly
created,
for their different
reasons,
by
the dominant and the weak.
Thus,
ironically,
the
process
of domination itself
generates
the social evi-
dence that
apparently
confirms notions of
hegemony.
The dilemma of scholars
is to discern what the subordinate
"really"
think,
when
they
are not
performing
for the
public transcript, by finding
evidence of their hidden
transcript.
Such
evidence is available even from
public
events because the subordinate
engage
in
"a veiled discourse of
dignity
and self-assertion within the
public transcript" (p.
137).
If one knows how to decode the
public
acts and
speech
of the
weak,
one
can discern in them an
"ideological
resistance
[that]
is
disguised,
muted and
veiled for
safety's
sake"
(p. 137).
"What we confront
then,
in the
public
tran-
script,
is a
strange
kind of
ideological
debate about
justice
and
dignity
in which
one
party
has a severe
speech impediment
induced
by power
relations"
(p. 138).
Ultimately,
the
importance
of these forms of resistance-"arts of
political
dis-
guise"-is
that
they
are the
"infrapolitics"
of the
oppressed,
the
elementary
forms of their
political
life,
on which the
possibility
of more
open
action de-
pends.
Each form of
"disguised
resistance... is the silent
partner
of a loud form
of
public
resistance"
(p. 199)
which
may eventually emerge, given
favorable
conditions.
For
Scott,
it is not true that subordinates
experience ideological
contradic-
tions,
a doubled or divided consciousness. Nor is it the case
that,
given
the domi-
nant cultural
materials,
they
find it hard to articulate a
counterreality,
as
hegem-
ony
theorists
might say.
Rather,
their hidden ideas about a different
world,
which Scott is sure
they
have,
have
just
not been realizable in
practice.
In some
ways
this seems an attractive
conceptual
scheme. Scott
joins
the
new cultural historians in
pointing
out the
nontransparent, socially
constructed
nature of historical and archival evidence. The book's
strength
is in the
engag-
ingly
described and
kaleidoscopic examples
of
performances-of-resistance
and
rituals-of-the-weak.
Furthermore,
his
emphasis
on
struggle
and conflict in the
creation of such
performances
is a welcome antidote to an older
ethnography
of
speaking
that too
easily
assumed cultural consensus in the
interpretation
of
speech. Finally, anthropologists
can
only applaud
his attention to
linguistic prac-
tices as
politically important phenomena. However,
as I
argue
below,
it is
exactly
Scott's
handling
of
linguistic
materials that
finally
undermines his
argument.
Selves and
Interacting Subjects
Scott thinks of the
public transcript
as a matter of
performance, acting,
and
even
posing.
This
may
sound at first like the familiar Goffmanian
insight
that
social life can be viewed as drama.
However,
Scott's
understanding
of
perform-
ance is much narrower than this and is linked to a notion of an authentic self that
is
necessarily betrayed by performance.
Scott's
position
is thus antithetical to
Goffman's
(1959)
view that
every
social act is
unavoidably
a
presentation
of
self. Goffman's
dramaturgical metaphors suggest
that all social
beings
in the in-
teraction order are
necessarily,
in some
sense,
actors. In
contrast,
Scott thinks of
acting
as an onerous
imposition,
suffered
mostly by
the weak: "the
script
and
412 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
stage
directions for subordinate
groups
are
generally
far more
confining
than for
the dominant"
(p. 28),
for it is the weak who must
"suppress
and control feel-
ings"
and simulate emotions
(p. 29).
It is for the subordinate that the
public
tran-
script
is a "realm of masks" in which "less of the
unguarded
self is ventured"
(p.
29).
In
contrast,
for the
dominant,
"power
means not
having
to act" or
perform;
it is "the
capacity
to be more
negligent
and casual about
any single perform-
ance"
(p.
29;
emphasis
in
original).
In a
chapter
entitled
"Domination,
Acting
and
Fantasy," sociolinguistic
and social
psychological
studies from several dec-
ades
ago
are invoked to
argue
that for the
subordinate,
public
life is made
up
of
"command
performances" (p. 29)
that
involve,
most
centrally, "masking
one's
feelings"
in
response
to the
indignities
of
exploitation (p. 37),
and
"controlling
what would be a natural
impulse
to
rage,
insult,
anger
and the violence that such
feelings prompt" (p. 37).
Indeed,
Scott asserts that the content of the hidden
transcript emerges sys-
tematically
from the redirection of this
suppressed rage,
from the "frustration of
reciprocal
action"
(p. 37).
In its
proper
social
site,
the hidden
transcript provides
the means to
express
these emotions and make them collective. It is in this sense
that,
according
to
Scott,
domination creates the hidden
transcript.
For this ex-
planation
to hold in the broad
range
of cases to which Scott
applies
it,
the nature
of
personhood
or the self must be assumed to be known and
unproblematic
across vast cultural and historical
differences,
and a
naturalized,
indeed
hydrau-
lic,
view of the emotions must be
accepted.
Yet these
assumptions
are untenable. The
culturally
constructed and vari-
able nature of the
"person"
is
by
now a truism in
anthropology (see
Geertz
1983), supported by
much evidence across a
range
of theoretical
approaches.
Careful new
empirical
work
(reported
in Lutz and
Abu-Lughod 1990) suggests
that emotions are best seen as constituted in social discourses and situated
speech practices
which are
likely
to
vary
across time and
space,
not as
primor-
dial internal states that are fixed
responses
to environmental stimuli. In this con-
structionist
view,
rage
itself would have to be understood as
discursively
consti-
tuted,
not as a "natural"
response.
Scholars
investigating linguistic practices
within situations of
unequal
power
have noted that subordinate
groups
often
produce
several distinct dis-
courses about emotion. For
instance,
Abu-Lughod (1986)
discusses the dissi-
dent or subversive
expression
of
love,
performed
in oral
lyric poetry among
the
Bedouin of
Egypt's
Western Desert. The
genre
is most
closely
associated with
women and
youths
who are this
society's disadvantaged dependents.
But Abu-
Lughod repeatedly
stresses that this
poetry
is
anything
but a
spontaneous
out-
pouring
of
feeling.
Rather,
it is
artful,
planned language,
rich in
irony.
It is a case
of
counterdiscourse,
rather than some
explosion
of raw
experience
into the
realm of official
opinion.
More
generally,
the
expression
of
contradictory opin-
ions
by
a
single speaker,
in different
contexts,
is not
necessarily
evidence of dis-
sembling
or
inauthenticity.
In a
bilingual community
in
Hungary, any single
vil-
lager expresses many
and often
conflicting opinions
about the value of the two
languages
he or she
speaks, including opinions
that show evidence of a resis-
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 413
tance to official
languages
and
ideologies.
But these
contrasting
stances cannot
be classified as
posed
versus
genuine; they
are evidence of the coexistence of
deeply
felt
yet
contested discourses
(Gal 1993).
More
important,
Scott's
equation
of
power
with lack of
expressive
con-
straint flies in the face of cross-cultural evidence. Extensive
ethnographic
case
studies have demonstrated that in some societies it is the holders of
greatest
power
who must restrain themselves
physically, linguistically,
and often in the
expression
of emotion
exactly
because it is
superior
restraint that
culturally
and
ideologically
defines and
justifies
their
power, enabling
them to
properly
exer-
cise it. In this
sense,
the link between
linguistic
forms and their functions is con-
structed and mediated
by
local
ideologies
of
self,
language,
and
power.
The in-
directness and allusive
quality
of
Malagasy
men's
speech (Ochs 1974),
the
linguistic
inarticulateness,
even
ungrammaticality,
of Wolof nobles
(Irvine
1990),
the strenuous restraint in
performance required
of monarchs in the Bali-
nese theater state
(Geertz 1980),
and the
muting
of interactional
gestures among
educated,
high-status
Javanese
(Errington 1988)
are
only
the best known of such
examples.
In
short,
there is no
simple,
universal relation between social
power
and the form in which emotion is
expressed, exactly
because the construction
and
expression
of affective states is mediated
by linguistic ideology.
What is odd about this
part
of Scott's
argument
is that he himself
provides
counterevidence to his
major
claims in the course of
making
other
points.
In-
deed,
it is a
general
and
irritating
characteristic of the book that Scott often de-
nies in one
place
a
point
he has
demonstrably
asserted in another.
So,
for in-
stance,
he
argues
elsewhere that the dominant do indeed need to
provide
a
"performance of
mastery"
that is sometimes hard to
construct,
and their "com-
portment
... must
embody
the ideas
by
which ... domination is
publicly justi-
fied"
(p. 49).
In a footnote
(p.
52 n.
16;
see also
p. 105),
he makes the familiar ob-
servation that different
types
of
legitimation
of
power
will
require
different
types
of
public performance
from the
powerful.
For
instance,
only
those who
claim to rule because
they
are more honest and better
qualified
need to hide their
moral
lapses
and technical mistakes. But this more discursive or constructionist
approach
to
emotion,
power,
and the self
disappears
in most of the
text,
in favor
of the view that
directly
derives the form and content of hidden
transcripts
from
the universal emotional
plumbing
of the
weak,
who are coerced to hide their
pent-up rage.
Scott's inconsistencies around
questions
of selfhood and emotion derive
from his
apparent
ambivalence about two
currently
controversial
epistemologi-
cal issues in social science. The first is the vexed
question
of the researcher's
own
positionality.
It is
typical
that,
while
rightly alerting
his readers to the subtle
role of different
perspectives
and
conflicting goals
in the creation of the
public
transcript,
Scott's definition of
transcript-a
term whose
metaphorical
use is
fundamental to this book-reveals his own reluctance to follow the
argument
through
and
adopt
a
similarly perspectivalist approach
to hidden
transcripts
in
his
analyses.
Scott
says
he uses the notion of
transcript
in its
"juridical
sense
(proces verbal)
of a
complete
record of what was said ... also
includ[ing]
non-
414 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
speech
acts such as
gestures
and
expressions" (p. 2).
But this definition
ignores
the
fact,
often noted
by
students of social
interaction,
that
any transcript
is itself
a
socially
constructed
artifact,
created for definable
purposes
that
depend
on the
goals
of the
transcriber,
and can be neither
"complete"
nor the
objective
"view
from nowhere" that Scott's definition
suggests (see
Ochs
1979).
The second issue is revealed in his
attempt partially
to reform but at the
same time to retain a
widespread metaphor
of
power
and resistance that domi-
nates current social science discourse.
Timothy
Mitchell
(1990)
has drawn at-
tention to the
way
in which this master
metaphor depends
on our
everyday
(Western) conception
of the
person
as an
internally
autonomous,
self-formed
consciousness
living
inside a
physically
manufactured
body.
This familiar dual
notion of the
person
leads to the idea that
power
itself is dual: coercion is
usually
understood as an external force exercised on the
body
but not
necessarily pene-
trating
and
controlling
the
mind,
while
persuasion
is the mental mode
by
which
power operates,
one that
captures
the mind. In a
parallel argument,
Rosalind
O'Hanlon
(1988)
notes that when Marxist critics want to
bring oppressed
or ne-
glected groups
to the attention of Western
audiences,
they
do so
by trying
to
show that the
oppressed
are also
recognizably
like the Western ideal of the
po-
litical
subject,
that
is,
they
are dual selves. The critic thus
presents
the
oppressed
as
self-formed,
internally
autonomous actors
mentally resisting
an external
domination.
In
contrast,
Mitchell
(1990:546)
follows Foucault in
arguing
that this
dual,
autonomous
subject
is itself "the effect of
distinctively
modern forms of
power."
Mitchell
argues
that such forms of
power ought
to be
explored
in their
own
right
in order to discover how
they
create a world
that,
"like the modern
subject
... seems to be constituted as
something
divided from the
beginning
into two
neatly opposed
realms,
a material order on the one hand and a
separate
sphere
of
meaning
or culture on the other"
(1990:546). Clearly,
for
Scott,
sub-
ordinate
groups
seem more self-formed and autonomous if
they
can be seen as
producing
resistance not
through
some
range
of alternate discourses
(which
might
seem like mere tricks of mental
persuasion
as nefarious as that of a domi-
nant
discourse)
but
directly
from their
supposedly
unmediated
experience
of
rage
in the face of domination.
Although
the
emphasis
is on
resistance,
there is
no room in this scheme for cultural or
ideological
mediation of
emotion,
for
counterdiscourse,
or for the contradictions of mixed beliefs.
In
sum,
the use of the
dramaturgical metaphor
in this book is
shallow,
con-
tradicting
the tradition of Goffman and the
ethnography
of
speaking.
The
analy-
sis of
power-laden
interaction relies on
assumptions
about the nature of human
subjects
and their emotions that
diverge
from recent
comparative
and construc-
tionist work in
anthropology.
There are
similarly problematic assumptions
in
the book's
larger comparative
scheme.
The Trouble with Dominant and Subordinate
Scott flattens the
great range
of
power
relations evident in the diverse so-
cial formations of the historical and
ethnographic
record into a
single opposition
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 415
between dominant and subordinate.
Effacing
the historical and cultural differ-
ences between the situations of
groups
such as
18th-century
American
slaves,
19th-century
Russian
peasants,
and
late-20th-century
workers in former Com-
munist
states,
he concentrates instead on the similarities between them. In his
terms,
they
are all
groups
that are
relatively
weak
politically
and
economically,
and that construct
public
and hidden
transcripts.
A
transcript
is either a meta-
phor
for
ideology,
based on the
image
of face-to-face courtroom
interaction, or,
in the case of the hidden
transcript
that
expresses
resistance,
it is the actual
prod-
uct of face-to-face interaction that occurs in
protected
sites. It follows
that,
for
Scott's
purposes,
the
political
use of
language
is assumed to be similar across
cultures,
and across
systems
of domination and historical
periods.
There are
important sociological
reasons for not
conflating
so
many
differ-
ent forms of
political
and economic domination. But I will concentrate here
only
on some of the
language-related disadvantages
of such a
strategy.
One unfortu-
nate result is the
slighting
or
ignoring
of the
ideological impact
of those commu-
nicative
media-print,
television, video, radio,
and film-whose existence and
functioning vary significantly
across the
historically
different cases that Scott
equates,
and whose creation and dissemination of
ideology
are not at all ade-
quately
described
by
the face-to-face
metaphor.
Thus,
Scott's book describes a
barely recognizable landscape
in which it often
appears
that
19th-century
work-
ers did not read
broadsheets,
and
20th-century peasants,
workers,
and
post-
Communists are not
profoundly
influenced
by listening
to
radio,
watching
tele-
vision,
or
playing
cassette recorders. Yet some of the
greatest political
and
ideological changes
of the last 200
years-changes importantly
related to
Scott's concern with
domination,
including
the rise of
nationalism,
the creation
of the
citizen-subject,
the
spread
of
consumerism,
and the recent
collapse
of
communism-have been
shaped by
the existence of these mass media. Because
these
changes
are subsumed under the dominant-subordinate
dichotomy,
Scott
provides very
little
separate commentary
on them and no theoretical
apparatus
to understand their relation to
linguistic processes.
A brief sketch of one well-known
example
should suffice to illustrate the
problem.
Benedict Anderson's
(1983) analysis
of nationalism draws attention to
the creation of communities in which members will never know or interact with
most of their fellow
members,
in
part
because the size of the
group
makes face-
to-face contact
among
all members an
impossibility.
Scott never
explicitly
con-
siders such
groups organized by
national
ideology.
In his
terminology,
we
would sometimes have to call such
groups economically
and
politically
"subor-
dinate,"
as in the case of nations formed
against
a colonial
power,
and at other
times
they
would be "dominant."
But,
in either
case,
as Anderson
shows,
the
imagination
of such communities is central to their existence. And this construc-
tion or
imagination
has been made
possible, historically,
because of mediation
by
certain artifacts of
print capitalism:
the
regional newspaper
and the novel.
The
reading
of
newspapers
is an
416 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
extraordinary
mass
ceremony
...
performed
in silent
privacy,
in the lair of the
skull. Yet each communicant is well aware that the
ceremony
he
performs
is
being
replicated simultaneously by
thousands
(or millions)
of others of whose existence
he is
confident,
yet
of whose
identity
he has not the
slightest
notion.
[Anderson
1983:35]
Whatever the
shortcomings
of Anderson's
larger argument,
it is obvious that
populations
of the kind Scott defines
by
his labels "subordinate" and "domi-
nant" must also be created and united
by
such
complex linguistic processes (call
them
imagination,
mobilization,
or
consciousness-raising)
that are
usually
not
examples
of face-to-face interaction. Yet Scott
provides
no
analysis
at all of
such mediated communication.
By drawing
attention to
print
and other mass
media,
I am also
suggesting
that,
contrary
to Scott's
analysis,
the "sites" at which hidden
transcripts
are cre-
ated need not be restricted to
places
where furtive face-to-face encounters occur.
Resistance to domination is
just
as
likely
to be
produced by illegal
radio sta-
tions,
samizdat
magazines, pirated
music
cassettes,
or
patched-in
cable TV. An-
thropology
itself has
certainly
not solved the
problem
of how to
analyze
such
mediated
linguistic practices,
but it is clear that the tools of face-to-face
analysis
alone are
inadequate
to the task.
Instead,
we need to understand the semiotic
processes
and
ideologies
with which
people imagine
their
identities,
their sub-
ordination,
and their
"communities,"
through
such
media,
and vis-a-vis other
social identities.
Scott's
single
schematic
dichotomy
of dominant and subordinate also hides
the fact that different forms of domination
produce
different
configurations
of
language
use in
politics,
or what Scott would
perhaps
call different kinds or or-
ders of
transcripts.
One
example
will suffice. In
describing Mongolian politics,
Caroline
Humphrey
notes that in societies
encapsulated
within a
Soviet-type
system,
domination did not consist of an elite
group
surrounded
by
a subordi-
nated mass
(as
Scott's
implied
model
suggests),
but rather "domination resides
in a series of
equivalent positions
in
nesting
hierarchies,
such that a similar
domination
may
be exercised at each level"
(1994:46). Humphrey
(1994) sug-
gests
that in such
cases,
there was
typically
an "official
transcript,"
a version of
Marxism-Leninism,
that was
mostly
written,
perceived
to be
highly ideological,
sanctimonious and
stilted,
and
imposed
on
Mongolians by
Soviet force and om-
nipresent
Soviet "advisers." Rather than
any
unified
opposition
to this official
ideology, expressed
in some hidden
transcript,
there was a
range
of
quite widely
known,
ambiguous,
but not at all
hidden,
transcripts,
used
by everyone
in Mon-
golia.
Hidden sites
frequented by people
of a
single
subordinate social
category
not
only
were rare but also were subverted
by
the
knowledge
that
anyone
could
be an informer. This was because lines of division between subordinate and
dominant were
impossible
to draw:
everyone experienced
both domination and
subordination within the
tightly
nested hierarchies of
everyday Mongolian
life,
and
everyone engaged
in
riddle-like,
deliberately cryptic analyses
of
everyday
events
(Humphrey 1994:44-48).
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 417
Thus,
if the conflation of different kinds of social
systems
into a
single
schematic
dichotomy
is
problematic,
so is the related
assumption
that the sub-
ordinate and the dominant are
always clearly
definable, unified,
and
separable
groups, unambiguously opposed
to each other. State socialism is a
striking prob-
lem for Scott's
dualism,
but nested hierarchies and nondualistic forms of domi-
nation occur in other social formations as well.
My larger point
is
that,
in con-
trast to Scott's
implicit assumption
of dualistic
fixity,
the
place
of
language
in
political
life varies
significantly
across
systems
of domination.
Definitions of Public
Another fundamental
conceptual
tool in Scott's work is the distinction be-
tween
public
and hidden. Public is defined as "action that is
openly
avowed to
the other
party
in the
power relationship"
and a "shorthand
way
of
describing
the
open
interaction between subordinates and those who dominate"
(p. 2).
Once
again,
face-to-face interaction
provides
the model for
ideological
discourse,
and
no further discussion of the
concept
is
provided.
Public thus becomes a matter
of audience: who is
supposed
to be
witnessing
certain
speech, gestures, prac-
tices. But if
public
means
merely
an
audience,
then hidden
transcripts, by
defi-
nition,
must also have their
publics.
Even the caveat that hidden
transcripts
are
produced
in
opposition
to
power
will not
help
to define them. As Scott acknow-
ledges, power
relations,
after
all,
occur inside subordinate
groups
too,
when
leaders exert
power
over followers or
group pressure
coerces members.
Thus,
we can
easily imagine
a hidden
transcript
that voices
resistance,
from within an
enslaved
group,
to the
ideology
of a
particular
slave leader. What then distin-
guishes public
and hidden
transcripts?
Or,
one
might
ask,
from whose
perspec-
tive do we call a
transcript
"hidden" or
"offstage"?
Scott mentions that the
split
in the Civil
Rights
movement and the
emergence
of a Black Power movement in
the United States in the 1960s was
preceded by "offstage
discourse
among
black
students,
clergymen
and their
parishioners" (p. 199).
But since much of the dis-
sension over
strategies among
black elites in the 1960s was
reported
in
regional
and local
newspapers, potentially
available to
all,
in what sense was this dis-
course "hidden"?
Scott
acknowledges
some of these
problems
and
attempts
to solve them
by
briefly arguing
that there are
many
hidden
transcripts developed
in a continuum
of
sites,
with some sites
being
more "intimate" than others and so
"relatively
freer of intimidation from above"
(pp. 25-27).
But if there can be
many
hidden
transcripts
and also
many public
ones-some of these
occurring
even within
subordinate
groups-we
have
gained
little in
analytic precision
or
insight.
In the
end,
the
problem
is not one of
counting
and
distinguishing transcripts
or the views
they express,
rather it is that the definition of
public
used
by
Scott
is unexamined and
inadequate.
The idea of
public,
far from
being
a
simple ques-
tion of
audience,
based on the model of witnessed face-to-face
interaction,
is it-
self a
deeply ideological
construct in Western
thought,
often linked
exactly
to
the
separation
of
language
from a face-to-face situation and thus to the decon-
textualization of
language by print.
Based on its role in
European history,
one
418 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
might
call the notion of
public
a
logic
for the
legitimation
of
political power.
It
has been identified in a number of forms in recent
analyses
of
postabsolutist
Europe
and North America. Warner
(1990), building
on the influential discus-
sion
by
Habermas
(1989), argues
that the
legitimacy
of
18th-century
American
republicanism
was based on the
negative
notion of disinterested individuals
who,
because the
anonymity
of
print
allowed them to be
no-one-in-particular,
could claim to
represent everyone (the public,
the
people).
As I have hinted
above,
Anderson's
(1983)
notion of the
"imagined community" plays
on the
same
logic
of a non-face-to-face social
group
defined
through
simultaneous
reading
as
"everyone-in-the-nation,"
because
no-one-in-particular.
Feminist critics have noted that the idea of a
public actually helps
to con-
stitute the
powerful, ruling group
in
society by silently excluding many catego-
ries of
people
and activities
(Fraser
1992 and Landes
1988).
Fictions of disinter-
estedness and
anonymity produced through
ideas about disembodied
language
accomplish
this exclusion while also
masking
it. In
18th-century
France,
Eng-
land,
and the United
States,
for
instance,
it was
women, blacks,
and men without
property
who were
categorized
as
necessarily particularistic, partisan,
and self-
interested;
their
political
actions could never have been seen as disinterested and
so
legitimately
directed at the
general,
the "common"
weal,
the
"public" good.
Thus,
it is not
only
that dominant
groups
often control what counts as the
public
transcript.
More
fundamentally, groups
can become
politically
dominant,
at
least in some kinds of societies and in
particular
historical
periods, exactly by
constituting
themselves as the
natural,
unquestioned
members of a disinter-
ested,
anonymous public.
A form of
opposition
to this
ideological
mechanism is
the creation of alternate
publics,
which have indeed been much discussed in re-
cent
politics
of race and
gender.
Thus,
public
is not an innocent or
transparent
term linked
only
to audi-
ences,
as Scott would have it.
Rather,
within the Western
tradition,
the broad no-
tion of a
public
is a form of
political legitimation
in which the decontextualiza-
tion and
depersonalization
of
language produces
the
image
of a social
group
uniquely
fitted to
govern
because it is
no-one-in-particular
and thus can
suppos-
edly
stand for
everyone.
On the model of the historical research that has
emerged
around the
analysis
of the
concept
of
public
in
Europe
and the United
States,
global comparative
endeavors such as Scott's book would have to ex-
plore
the
key
terms that
produce
and mask such
exclusionary legitimation
in
other social
formations,
and also the
way
that
language ideology
and mass me-
dia are
implicated
in the creation of such
categories.
Language
and
Hegemony
Despite
these
gaps
in his
analysis
of
publics,
the
strongest
sections of
Scott's book are those in which he discusses the
complicitly
created
public
tran-
script, focusing
on the
linguistic practices
in which subordinate
groups express
their dissatisfaction and resistance to dominant
ideology.
However,
Scott's as-
sumptions
about the unmediated
(precultural, presemiotic) relationship among
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 419
linguistic
form,
ideology,
and social function undermine the
generality
of his
formulations and
severely
limit their usefulness for
anthropology.
As I have
noted,
Scott
argues against
what he calls "thick" theories of he-
gemony.
These are theories which
posit
that subordinate
groups accept
the
dominant
ideology
and therefore consent to their own
subordination,
believing
it to be
just.
Scott
distinguishes
between such theories of
ideological incorpora-
tion and "thin" theories of
hegemony,
which assert
only
that subordinate
groups
perceive
their own
powerlessness
to be natural or inevitable. Thin
theories,
ac-
cording
to
Scott,
allow that subordinates can and do
imagine
alternative worlds.
But such alternate views are seldom
expressed openly.
To avoid
reprisals,
and
in order to
manipulate
the
powerful
and
thereby
achieve social
change,
the ex-
pression
of hidden
transcripts,
of resistant
ideologies,
is
muted, veiled,
muf-
fled,
disguised,
and
anonymous, according
to
Scott,
and often
appears
to
uphold
the
reigning ideology
in the
very
act of
questioning
or
subverting
it. In a
rich,
central
chapter
entitled "Voice under Domination: The Arts of Political Dis-
guise,"
Scott's
goal
is to detail the
linguistic
mechanisms of resistance.
Using
much evidence culled from
sociolinguistic
studies,
he
suggests
that
anonymity
in
speaking,
the use of
euphemisms,
indistinct and indirect
grumbling, polyva-
lent
symbolism,
and
cryptic metaphor
are all forms of resistance because
they
hide the
identity
and intent of the
speaker.
Oral
culture,
trickster
tales,
symbolic
inversions,
and rituals of reversal are
similarly
forms of resistance.
Indeed,
their
pervasiveness among
the weak is used as evidence
by
Scott for the
widespread
absence of cultural
hegemony.
But Scott's
analysis
of these "arts of
disguise"
is
seriously
flawed,
for the
function of resistance cannot be
directly equated
with a list of
linguistic
forms
or
strategies. Any linguistic
form-such as
euphemism, metaphor,
indirection,
trickster
tale,
or
anonymous speaking-gains
different
meanings
and has differ-
ent social and
political
effects within
specific
institutional and
ideological
con-
texts. As Scott himself mentions in
passing
elsewhere in the
book,
euphemisms
are also used
by
the
strong,
with
quite
different effects. The
cryptic metaphors
and indirection Scott links to weakness and resistance were
very
much in evi-
dence in the discourse of
ruling
elites in state socialism
(see,
for
example,
Gal
1991); and,
as I have
suggested
above,
the
practice
of
speaking anonymously
can work as a
legitimating strategy
for
powerful groups.
Cultures
vary widely
in
the kinds of
speech styles they identify
as
powerful
or weak. Even silence can be
as much a
strategy
of
power
as of
weakness,
depending
on the
ideological
under-
standings
and contexts within which it is used.
Scott's insistence on
linking speech
forms
directly
to
political functions,
without the mediation of culture or
linguistic ideology, parallels
the
way
in
which he
attempts
to link emotions
directly
to
selves,
without the mediation of
culture. Both
attempts
derive,
ultimately,
from a referentialist view of
language
in which texts and
transcripts
are read for their
supposedly
fixed,
unproblem-
atic,
denotational
meaning. Tropes
are seen not as cultural constructions but
merely
as transformed or deformed versions of the literal. In this view there is
no need to consider the cultural context in
correlating linguistic
forms to social
420 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
functions. In
contrast,
recent work on
linguistic ideology argues
that
linguistic
practices-tropes
and
figurative
uses of
language,
such as
euphemisms
and in-
direction,
as well as the
supposedly
"literal"-are
interpretable only
within
par-
ticular social and institutional
contexts,
and are linked to social functions such
as resistance or domination
only through specific linguistic ideologies.
How-
ever
aptly
chosen his
particular examples
of
resistance,
Scott's more
general
theoretical
proposals ignore
this
mediating
role of
linguistic ideology,
thus vi-
tiating
his
larger argument
about
language
and resistance.
A similar lack of attention to the
relationship
between
language ideology
and
linguistic
form mars Scott's
argument
about the limits of cultural
hegem-
ony.
It would
hardly
be worthwhile here to enter into the forest of
arguments
about cultural
hegemony
that social theorists have
produced.
But it bears
repeat-
ing
that,
within the Gramscian
tradition,
the notion of resistance-of
opposi-
tional, residual,
emergent,
or alternative cultural forms-has
long
been central
to discussions of
hegemony (see,
for
example,
Williams
1973).
Scholars have
also described
hegemony
as the use of social constraints to create an
appearance
of consensus in an
atmosphere
of intimidation.
Thus,
Scott's
arguments
about
the
ubiquity
of resistance are
hardly
new;
on the
contrary, they
are
quite congru-
ent with much
existing
literature on the
subject.
What is new is Scott's insis-
tence that this
"infrapolitics"
is the
precedent
for
open
conflict
(p. 196),
that the
hidden
transcript
is the silent
partner
of later
public
revolt or mobilization
(p.
199).
In this romantic characterization of
resistance,
Scott
ignores
the extent to
which
hegemony may
be tacit and resistance often
partial
and
self-defeating.
It
can lead as
easily
to the
reproduction
of domination as to revolution. The omis-
sion is
surprising
because the
very ethnographic
studies he cites to
support
his
point
about the
strength
of resistance also describe its
frequently contradictory
nature and effects.
For
instance,
Willis's
(1977)
influential
study
of
working-class
British
school lads shows that their
counterculture,
created in resistance to the
hegem-
ony
of the
school,
made them neither
politically
radical
(or revolutionary)
nor
conventionally
successful.
Instead,
it
produced cynicism
and the
reproduction
of their
powerlessness. Importantly,
while
resisting
some
aspects
of dominant
ideology
in the
school,
the lads
actively reproduced
and elaborated other
aspects
of dominant
ideology,
such as the devaluation of women and
girls (Willis 1977).
Similarly,
in his discussion of Sennett and Cobb's
(1972)
work on the "hidden
injuries
of class"
among working-class
American
men,
Scott notes the workers'
complaints
about bosses' routine assaults on their
dignity,
which he
rightly
in-
terprets
as
ideological
resistance
(p. 112).
But he fails to
report
Sennett and
Cobb's
(1972)
further
argument
that these same men blamed
themselves,
not the
class
system,
for their lack of economic success.
They tacitly "incorporated"
the
reigning ideology
of
meritocracy.
Thus,
while resistance is indeed
widespread,
ideological incorporation may partially
coexist with
it,
as different
aspects
of
dominant
ideology
cross-cut each other.
No doubt Scott would more
easily
detect the
complexities
of resistance and
the
partial
or
contradictory
forms of
hegemony
if his
understanding
of
language
LANGUAGE AND THE "ARTS OF RESISTANCE" 421
included more attention to
linguistic
form and the
way
that its
political
function
is conditioned
by language ideology.
Two
quite
different
examples
will illus-
trate this
point. Although
Scott often mentions
minority languages
and
dialects,
he is interested
mostly
in the
way
these can shield the hidden
transcript by
mak-
ing oppositional
talk
impenetrable
to
powerful
observers. But in societies that
have
undergone linguistic
standardization,
domination is not
directly
a result of
economic weakness but is established
exactly by
the
ideological
construction of
a
"monoglot
standard,"
inculcated in schools and in mass media and viewed as
the
property
of the
bourgeoisie.
Once the belief in the
communicative, aesthetic,
or other
superiority
of such a standard has been
established,
other
varieties,
whatever their
provenance,
are
usually
seen
(and
not
only by standard-speakers)
as
degenerate
or inferior versions of the standard itself.
Regardless
of the exact
political
and economic
aspects
of their
weakness,
speakers
of such varieties are
ideologically
constituted as a subordinate
group
on the basis of the
supposed
cultural,
cognitive,
or aesthetic
inadequacy
of their
speech.
As
many
studies
have
shown,
such
speakers may
resist
by continuing
to use their own
varieties,
but within
regimes
of standardization
they
often also devalue themselves and
the varieties
they
use
(see
Silverstein
1987;
Woolard
1985).
A
second,
quite
different kind of
example similarly provides
a
complex
and
subtle case of resistance and tacit
hegemony
mediated
by linguistic
structure. As
is well
known,
English
has a
system
of
obligatory pronominal gender catego-
ries. Critics have
complained
for at least 200
years
that,
by
virtue of their struc-
tural
properties,
these distinctions naturalize and
reproduce
certain
categories
of
thought, including
the
ideological assumption
that men are the
prototypical
hu-
man actors.
However,
the articulation of
grammatical gender
with
categories
of
humannesss and social
agency
creates an
impressive stability
in the
gender sys-
tem,
making
it difficult to
change. Building
on Silverstein's
(1985) original
analysis
of
gender marking
in
English,
Hill and Mannheim summarize the di-
lemma:
Although
it is an arena of
conflict,
the
[gender] category system
continues to
function in
everyday
contexts even for
speakers
who are
examining
and
purpose-
fully remodeling
their
behavior, for,
even as one
part
of the
category system
is
brought
into conscious
contention,
other
parts
remain in
place unchallenged.
The
category system
creates a
particular
cultural
hegemony,
the
unquestioned accep-
tance,
by
both men and
women,
of men as a
normative,
unmarked
category
of
person.
The
hegemonic
structure is
reproduced
below the
speaker's
threshold of
awareness,
unconsciously,
but is
challenged
from above the threshold of aware-
ness,
consciously. [1992:389]
There is no room for such
complex
interactions of
resistance, domination,
and
hegemony
in Scott's
analytical
scheme.
Conclusion
Despite
its
flaws,
James Scott's book offers a
challenge
to
anthropology.
It
attempts
to
integrate
a wide
range
of
ethnographic
materials in the interests of
422 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
understanding political processes
and
power dynamics.
He takes
seriously
the
centrality
of
linguistic practices
in the
production
and dissemination of
ideology
and their
importance
in
understanding
resistance to cultural
hegemony.
The
book deserves attention for its breadth of
vision,
its often astute discussions of
the
logic
of
resistance,
and its
range
of evidence. But
ultimately,
Scott's
attempt
to theorize the links between
language
and
power
fails,
because his
approach
to
language
lacks some of the basic
principles
about
linguistic
form and
ideology
currently being developed
within the
anthropological study
of
language
and so-
cial life.
Notes
Acknowledgments. Many
thanks to Kit
Woolard,
Ben
Lee,
and Michael Silverstein
for their
suggestions, criticisms,
and careful
readings.
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