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First 'Intergalactic' Resistance Studies Conference

University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA

June 18-21, 2026 

Resistant Materialities and Power Tools: Dynamics of Power and Resistance in Everyday Consumerism

Otto Von Busch
Year of publication: 2017
DOI: 10.63961/2025.057
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Abstract

In an everyday perspective of resistance, there is a tendency to favor human action and agency, both in the exercise of power or in the acts of resistance. The aim of this study is to examine material agency in everyday power dynamics and to open a methodology of resistance studies in the realm of physical objects, designs, and materials. In correlation to a “new materialist” perspective on power, resistance works to build affinity between humans and nonhuman agency and disrupt materially supported subordination. In this study, a materialist methodology is introduced, with examples of how consumer objects are transformed to interfere with consumer relationships to become tools for cultivating resistant capabilities. As a case, the study examines a handbag made from a cookie box, produced by the Spanish activist “movement” Yomango, where the material properties of the metal box are mobilized to become active in the resistance. From a materialist perspective, the handbag becomes more than a symbolic prop for human-led activists and joins the ranks of co-resistors.

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