Everyday Resistance

Living in Slums as an Act of Resistance

In most cases, people refer to resistance as a violent act being taken in opposition to the governments. It is usually linked to the protests, organizing, and mobilizing against systems. However, every single activity could be looked at from a resistive perspective as long as this activity is a physical activity in opposition to power (Vinthagen). There are many small forms of resistance that are completely ignored, even though many people may practice them every day (Broad Perspectives: Everyday Resistance). "Everyday resistance" is a theoretical concept invented by James Scott in order to cover a different form of resistance (Vinthagen). For instance, the slum areas in Egypt have almost 40% of the

The earlier residents of slums chose to resist in the slums rather than resisting in their poor villages having fewer opportunities than the city. The others who chose not to leave their lands also resist this phenomenon that just started in the 1950's. Other reasons that caused the creation of the slum are the expansion of the capitalist economy, the overpopulation, the high birth rates and for sure poverty. In the slums, if the family head does not work for one day, the whole family will not have food that day (Musa). Although they resist the power of government besides other various powers, they are a great example of everyday resistance as they handle suffering everyday unconsciously. Indeed, living in the slums is an act of resistance because the residents of the slums resist the risky houses, the lack of

Resisting all of that day after day is what gives the residents of slums hope for better and humane life. Unfortunately, the government chose to use force and violence to tackle this problem. Rather than working on the reasons behind this problem, the government is creating more and more enemies among the residents of the slums. It is expected that these people will not remain to resist non-violently. Because violence brings more violence, they may resort to resist violently. The government really needs to take serious steps in order to solve the problem while putting in consideration the current situation of the inhabitants of the slums. Scott claims that people resort to this invisible resistance to secure themselves when rebellion is too risky. That basically means that everyday resistance is the only solution when the power is very strong. At the end, it has been emphasized the power is not only practiced by governments, but also could be practiced by any person who has control over another person; such as parents' power on their children, teachers' power on their students or even the power of norms in cultures. As long as there are powers everywhere, resistance will always be inevitable. The stronger the power is, the greater the resistance will