Resisting the State: Canadian History Through the Stories of Activists, by Scott Neigh

Abstract

Resisting the State is one of two books in which author Scott Neigh explores the history of Canadian social justice activism through the experiences of longtime organizers. The second book focuses on issues of gender and sexuality, while Resisting the State is organized around movements targeting the state in some way, such as anti-poverty work, immigration policy and anti-racism. Neigh refers to his approach as “history from below”: whereas we normally learn history from the top down, focusing on elites, institutions and “great men,” he argues that it is not only the powerful who create social and political change. Instead, he shows us the course of history as collectively made through the struggles of regular people in both big and small ways. Neigh introduces his readers to eight activists in six chapters. These include Isabel and Frank Showler, a couple of pacifists whose radical Christian beliefs led them to resist the Second World War; Charles Roach, a Trinidadian-Canadian lawyer who repeatedly challenged racism and colonialism in the course of his work; and Lynn Jones, a labour activist who fought racism from within the labour movement. We also meet Kathy Mallett and Roger Obonsawin, who have worked with indigenous communities and families in Canadian cities, bringing leadership to Friendship Centres and other indigenous-led organizations; Don Weitz, an anti-psychiatry activist who helped to develop a radical antipsychiatry magazine; and Josephine Grey, a human rights activist who has worked with and on behalf of poor communities in Ontario. Neigh’s approach to telling these stories is to use individual biographies as “nodes” from which to tease out “strands” that can be followed to investigate the social relations in which they are embedded. Each chapter begins with relevant context on the historical moment