Constructing Social Reality by Michael Karlberg

We call for further research on the many different stories of civil resistance across the worldwide coloniality line. Each emphasizes coloniality, constructive over contentious resistance, transformations in political subjectivity, and emancipatory visions that go beyond Western ideals.

Our essay examines two classic decolonizing thinkers (Gandhi and Fanon) and two contemporary decolonizing struggles (the Zapatistas in Mexico and the Abahlali in South Africa). We propose going beyond these limitations by learning from social movements focusing on human dignity, material self-sufficiency, and local autonomy, especially in the Global South. We argue that this perspective is an example of Eurocentric universalism, which has three blind spots: it tends to ignore struggles seeking to subvert rather than join the liberal world system, as well as coloniality's effects on nonviolent action, and emerging subjugated knowledges. As Wartenberg (1990, p.Western scholars dominating the field generally suggest that civil resistance struggles involve public contention with unjust states to expand political rights and civil liberties. This distinction is made by contrasting the expression “power to” with the expression “power over” (e.g., Connolly, 1974 Coser, 1976 Dowding, 1996 Hartsock, 1974, 1983 Lukes, 1986 Ma cpherson, 1973 Pitkin, 1972). In the latter half of the twentieth century, theorists of power began to invoke what has become a widely-used distinction between two broad ways of thinking and talking about power.

What this article will focus on is a dominant current of thought within late-twentieth-century scholarship that reflects popular Western-liberal discourses and assumptions regarding power. A review of such a rich and complex body of literature is, of course, beyond the scope of this artic le.

For example, some theorists have focused on the different forms that power takes, as well as the bases or resources that permit the exercise of power (Wartenberg, 1990 Wrong, 1997) some have explored the complex relationship between the quantitative distribution of power and the processes of social consent that legitimate various expressions of power (Hindess, 1996) some have examined the changing ways that power circulates throughout societies, constructing social institutions as well as individual subjectivities, as it imposes order and discipline in historically specific ways (Foucault, 1980) and others have approached the subject of power from other theoretic al perspectives. Has been approached in many ways, yielding diverse a nd valuable insights.

Constructing Social Reality by Michael Karlberg