Repertoires of Resistance: How Agency Fuelled Rhetoric, Resistance and Rebellion During Mao’s Housing Revolution

Little published research highlights how Chinese residents sought to resist state imposed housing policies when Mao Zedong was Communist Party leader (1949 - 1976) of the People’s Republic of China. By using extracts from previously unpublished eye witness accounts, this paper bridges that gap in existing scholarship. The paper shows how Burke’s (1966; 1969) dramaturgically informed method of narrative analysis may be instrumental in revealing agency as resistance. Analysis of three previously unpublished vignettes, contextualised within metaphorical representations of resistance, reveals a new tripartite typology of agency whereby resistance is characterized as: agency through deferment; agency through acquiescence and agency through protest. The potential of hidden transcripts, discourses of rightful resistance and the donning of the metaphorical perruque to reveal sub-cultures of power at the neighbourhood level in Mao’s China are exposed. The extent to which the eclectic mix of both resistance strategies and tactics enabled the residents and other stakeholders to improve their social, cultural and material capital over space, place and time is reviewed. In its concluding comments, the paper reflects on the new typology. The methodological challenges present when using eye witness accounts in reviews of agency as resistance both in the Maoist era and mainland China as a whole are considered. Implications for future research and resistance theory are also explored.