Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology, Vol 28(4), Nov 2022, 413-428; doi:10.1037/pac0000596
Most of the literature in social and political psychology has focused on two extremes regarding disadvantaged group members’ position in society; that is, either surviving on subsistence levels or fighting to change societal structures. The overemphasis on these two extremes has given less attention to the everyday psychology of resistance. In addition, the psychological processes encompassing everyday resistance have been ignored in social and political psychology literature while examining disadvantaged group members. Thus, the present study explores the relationship between psychological and everyday resistance in the context of the women’s movement in India. Furthermore, it examines the multiple forms and layers of resistance against patriarchal oppression and state violence that exist in different spheres and that activists were engaged in, beyond their activism/collective action. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyze interviews (N = 12) with Indian women activists available on the Global Feminism database. The analysis revealed the complexities and nuances in the relationship between psychological and everyday resistance. It provides detailed insight about the importance of the context and circumstances in shaping and determining the repertoires of resistance, issues of political intentions, recognition, erasure, and silencing associated with less prototypical or subaltern forms of resistance. Overall, this work provides a detailed account of understudied forms of resistance in underexamined and non-WEIRD contexts that is, India. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2023 APA, all rights reserved)