Subject of Resistance| Conceptualizing "Culture" and "Resistance" in Social Theory

• Main Author: Awsumb, Clay Michael
• Language: EN
• Published: Southern Illinois University at Edwardsville 2016
• Subjects: Sociology
• Online Access: http://pqdtopen.proquest.com/#viewpdf?dispub=10147080

<p> In this study I approach the contradictory, contentious, and competing notions of resistance as a conceptual problem, with empirical discursive realities, limiting social researchers&rsquo; ability to understand relations of power and culture. Using a grounded methodological, I conduct meta-analyses of theoretical, conceptual, and empirical literatures on and/or employing the concepts resistance, culture, and power. From this data, I present a series of emergent epistemic themes as epistemorphs, or knowledge forms, that order a &ldquo;structure for knowing&rdquo; characteristic of each term's constitution. I then develop a series of deconstructive analyses aimed at the external validity/reliability and intensional logics of each discursively identified conceptualization structure. I identify in these analyses a series problematics for the intensional logics ordering these concepts. In light of these findings and analyses, I introduce a number of new concepts as an alternative structure for knowing. I conceptualize power in terms of: power (an agent&rsquo;s properties with capacities to apply force and accomplish things), fortepovon (the praxis of agentic powers), and efikepotenco (the efficacy of powers realized). I introduce a conceptual distinction between &lsquo;the cultural&rsquo; (the Discursive mediation of culture) and &lsquo;culture&rsquo; (a process of knowledge formation in which experience is made intelligible and comprehensible). In relation the distinction for culture, I introduce a dialectic elaboration of Foucault&rsquo;s concept of power/knowledge: povonscio (powers in knowledge) and superfortiscio (power determinate knowledge). Returning to the conceptual questions concerning resistance, I articulate a dialectic conceptual formation for resistance and domination as dimensions of fortepovon, rather than being separate and independent phenomena. As an alternative, I propose conceptualizing the praxis of powers as either "oppressive" or "liberating."</p>