Silence as Collective Resistance amongst Adivasi Youth in India

Abstract

In modern social democracies, ideas about participation and resistance are generally understood through the actions of citizens, in relation to the state, with individual agency assumed to exist in both participation and resistance. This essay critiques modern liberal conceptualizations of agency and resistance as inadequate for understanding contexts of violence, conflict, and precarity, such as those of Adivasi youth in India. The emphasis on active participation in the state renders acts of (dis)engagement with governance structures unintelligible. Terms like agency and resistance need to account for the multiple configurations of power that operate in and beyond communities, as well as acts such as silence and nonparticipation, which do not simply mean disaffection or apathy. These actions cannot be understood within liberal conceptualizations of citizens participating in the workings of the state and require new theoretical frameworks and analytical tools to render these collective silences audible.