Reviews by Artemis Duffy, Dr. Ashjan Ajour, Craig Brown, Joseph Geraci, Joanna Riccitelli, Jordan M. Sanderson, Risa F. Isard, Sarah Murru, and Stellan Vinthagen

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Classical Book Review by Sven-Eric Liedman: Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels: The Communist Manifesto. A catechism becomes a manifesto

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Techniques of Resistance through Weaponization of the Body During Palestinian Hunger Strikes

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This article conceptualises the techniques of resistance developed by Palestinian hunger strikers. Through the weaponization of the body they seek to disrupt the techniques of power exercised over their starving bodies by the Israel Prison Authorities (IPA), as well as the Israeli intelligence services responsible for administrative detention. It shows that hunger strike is a site of creativity of resistance and human agency. From the hunger strikers’ view, it demonstrates their ability to claim agency over their bodies and the power of life and death which rests in the hands of those who resist. This mode of resistance not only reflects the relationship between Palestinian political prisoners and the IPA but also illustrates the complexity of settler-colonialism and the dynamics of anti-colonial resistance.

The article approaches the techniques of power and resistance between the IPA and political prisoners chronologically, from the initial phase of the hunger, the peak of the struggle, and the advanced stage which is marked by negotiations between the prisoners and the IPA. The trajectory of hunger strikes varies according to the decomposition of the starving body, and at each stage the prison authorities change the emphasis of their techniques in order to break the hunger strike, whilst the prisoners invent new techniques to sustain the hunger strike. Subjectivity formation during the hunger strike arises from the protracted battle between the resistant subjects and colonial power.

Everyday Resistance of Trainee Therapists under Clinical Supervision

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Supervisee resistance is often construed as an execution of their power to diminish the effects of the supervisors’ power in the field of counseling psychology. Such a limited view of resistance may ignore its sociocultural context and further support the social structure of domination that necessitates resistance in the first place. Given that resistance and power are connected yet distinct concepts, understanding resistance is necessary to better understand power relations. The discipline of psychology largely recognizes the ability of organized, collective resistance to make social changes, although not that of everyday forms of resistance that intend to survive and simultaneously sabotage domination. To expand the understanding of everyday resistance by recognizing agency that is culturally situated in social relations, this qualitative study used semi-structured interviews with seven supervisee participants to investigate their everyday resistance in clinical supervision, particularly focusing on the tactics they employed in interactions with their supervisors and what was achieved through those tactics, and the agency and subjectivity interwoven with the resistant acts upheld by cultural or professional discourses. The results indicate that the tactics employed (for example, selective presentation of cases or self, note-taking, acting positive, and pretended speculation) are not only aimed at protecting their professional integrity and therapist subjectivity, but also at maintaining harmonious supervisory relationships that may generate valuable social networks (guanxi) for future career development. Under the circumstances in which supervisees are unable to abide by both the professional ideology and cultural ethics of honoring instructors, they adopt the identity of a ‘good student’ to maneuver through difficult situations in the interest of guanxi. Through these tactics, supervisees demonstrated their agency despite being in vulnerable positions.

Rural Women in the Balkh and Herat Provinces of Afghanistan Simultaneous Resistance to, and Reproduction of, Patriarchal Power Structures

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This article will examine how rural Afghan women employ practices of everyday resistance as a means of challenging extremely patriarchal power structures and male domination in Afghanistan. The research presented illustrates how rural women simultaneously support and reproduce patriarchal societal structures and values through quiet encroachment of public spaces and the labour market as well as conscious adherence to certain patriarchal norms.

Through a qualitative research method consisting of eleven focus groups with 130 rural women from four districts, across two provinces in Afghanistan, a structurationist approach is employed in order to fully account for the interaction and interrelationship between dominant, male-privileging structures of power and rural women’s agency. Significantly, these women, through the intentions behind their practices of everyday resistance and encroachment upon public spaces, demonstrate that they do not wish to eradicate patriarchy, but rather to transform it into a more benign structure of power which conforms to the women’s interpretation of Islam. This is a construction of Islam which accommodates women as individuals with agency and ability, enabling them to take advantage of independent mobility, provide for their families, and send their children (sons and daughters) to school.

Thus, these women deliberately engage in everyday resistance to extreme manifestations of patriarchy, but simultaneously consciously adhere to, and subtly advocate for, more benevolent patriarchal social norms.

Volume 7, Number 1 – 2021

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