Reed DanahayTalkingAboutResistance Libre

Talking about Resistance: Ethnography and Theory in Rural FranceAuthor(s): Deborah Reed-DanahayReviewed work(s):Source: Anthropological Quarterly, Vol. 66, No. 4, Controversy: Hegemony and theAnthropological Encounter (Oct., 1993), pp. 221-229Published by: The George Washington University Institute for Ethnographic ResearchStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3318065 .Accessed: 24/04/2012 10:00

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TALKING ABOUT RESISTANCE: ETHNOGRAPHY AND THEORY IN RURAL FRANCE

DEBORAH REED-DANAHAY Emory University

This article uses ways of talking about the concept of "resistance" to critique the division between ethnography and theory in anthropology. The French concept of debrouillardise, as used by Auvergnat farmers, is a way of talking about social manipulation which can express accommodation, resistance, cunning, ways of "making out," and ways of "making do." Fieldwork incidents in which the ethnographer unwittingly came to be implicated in behaviors labelled as such helped her to rethink her own perspectives on power. [France, resistance, fieldwork, ethnography, cunning]

The place I have fictitiously named Lavialle, where I did my first fieldwork, is located in a mountain valley in the Auvergne region of central France. Lavialle contains seventeen small villages popu- lated by almost 350 farmers, artisans, and their families. As is common among mountain peoples, the lives of the Laviallois are fashioned in the mar- gins of the wider, urban-oriented society. For most adults, everyday life is focussed on making a living off of small, family-owned and operated, dairy farms. The Laviallois have successfully defended themselves from certain kinds of change, evidenced by the strength of children's ties to their families and the modest prosperity of the farms (see Reed- Danahay 1993).

Lavialle's primary school, run by the state, has helped to impose French over the local patois and tried to instill the moral and civic values of the bourgeoisie in local children. But parents in Lavi- alle do not passively accept the authority of the teachers. The French government is a target of mistrust and derision for the Laviallois, despite changing political regimes. Outsiders of all types are seen as potentially threatening to the continued perpetuation of family farms and local cultural life. The Laviallois have adopted a stance of "resistance" to agents who threaten their cultural auton- omy. This stance is, however, difficult to capture in the vocabulary of contemporary Anglo-American social science. Lavialle ways of talking about what is called "resistance," and their relationship to both ethnography and theory, will be the subject of my analysis.

Although many Laviallois are somewhat em- bittered by forgotten promises and unfair dealings on the part of the state, as well as by what they know to be the scornful attitudes of the urban bourgeoisie concerning their way of life, they do

not describe themselves solely as victims. More often they boast of their ability to manipulate, outwit, or extricate themselves from any threatening person or situation. The Laviallois believe that it is best to proceed without open confrontation and to get the upper hand through subtle means.

The Laviallois pride themselves on being highly adept, therefore, at behaviors that bear a striking resemblance to what James Scott calls "everyday forms of resistance" (Scott 1985, 1989, 1990). I will argue, however, that the Laviallois gloss for these behaviors, dbbrouillardise, suggests a somewhat different view of power and its uses from that now common in the theoretical literature on resistance. Rather than presenting dbbrouillardise as a folk concept, I will make the case that its theoretical validity cannot be separated from that of concepts generated by academic writers. The anthropological convention which relegates what our informants say to "ethnography" and what we say to "theory" has been questioned by several critics of business-as-usual in anthropology (Fabian 1983; Herzfeld 1985, 1987a; Rosaldo 1989). When fieldwork is conducted in France, a nation that is home to many of the most influential social theorists of our time, it becomes increasingly problematic to separate theory from ethnography.

This article is shaped by a perspective that validates not only the active role of those studied by anthropologists in shaping our research and thinking, but also the ethnographer's own active role in learning through fieldwork. Just as theories of learning increasingly question the model of the passive learner, our view of fieldwork must also be revised to take into account the active role of the ethnographer in learning. We learn not just with our minds, but also with our bodies and through our actions. Therefore, the participant role of the

221

222 ANTHROPOLOGICAL QUARTERLY

ethnographer is equally vital to the acquisition of ethnographic knowledge as is that of observer. Ac- tion theory can be applied to our own profession, not just to our subjects of study.

I learned about Laviallois notions of dbbrouillardise not only through questioning, listening to, and watching the Laviallois, but also through everyday situations in which I was participating and acting. As I look back on these and other exper- iences in the field, I see that power and resistance can no more be viewed as separate processes than can structure and agency. Despite Berger's con- demnation (this issue) of fieldwork as a site of unexamined, hegemonic, and modernist construc- tions of knowledge, the elasticity of the concept of fieldwork permits the anthropologist as fieldworker to "work out" and "work with" cultural understandings.

The Importance of Being Cunning

According to Scott, who conducted an ethnographic study of it among peasants in Southeast Asia and coined the term, "everyday resistance" is a form of political action among subordinate groups that is "informal, undeclared, disguised" (1989: 4). It is characterized by "such acts as foot dragging, dissimulation, false compliance, feigned ignorance, desertion, pilfering, smuggling, poach- ing, arson, slander, sabotage, surreptitious assault and murder, anonymous threats, etc." (p. 4). Scott (1990) has more recently described everyday resistance in terms of "hidden" transcripts not readily apparent in "official" transcripts and those on-stage behaviors controlled by elites.

Michel de Certeau's notion of "everyday practices" (1984) is quite similar to Scott's "everyday resistance." Certeau has drawn attention to what he calls ways of operating, or bricolage (a concept made famous in anthropology by Levi-Strauss), with examples from both France and the United States. He defines "ways of operating" as "victories of the 'weak' over the 'strong' (whether that strength be that of powerful people or the violence of things or of an imposed order, etc.), clever tricks, knowing how to get away with things, 'hunter's cunning', maneuvers" (p. xix). An increasingly common practice among French workers provides Certeau with an example of such behavior-it is la perruque (literally "the wig"). This term names acts in which "the worker's own work is disguised as work for his employer" (p. 25).

Certeau marvels at "the constant presence of these practices in the most ordered spheres of modern life" (p. 26).

The behaviors which interest Certeau and Scott can be placed within a general overall category of "cunning." In a discussion of the trickster tradition in folklore, which he considers as a hidden transcript, Scott writes of the celebration of cunning in such tales (1990: 164). He adds, however, that this loaded English term (which has a pejorative connotation) does not adequately capture the values expressed in these tales. There is a similar problem in using cunning as a gloss for dbbrouillardise, since the French noun la ruse, commonly translated as "cunning," is a pejorative term in Lavialle. Detienne and Vernant's discussion of the Greek quality of metis nicely captures the broader meanings of cunning, and is used by Certeau in his conception of ways of operating. They define it thus:

[it] combine(s) flair, wisdom, forethought, subtlety of mind, deception, resourcefulness, vigilance, opportunism, various skills and experience acquired over the years. It is applied in situations which are transient, shifting, discon- certing, and ambiguous, situations which do not lead themselves to precise measurement, exact calculation, or rigorous logic (1978: 3-4; quoted in Scott 1990: 164).

This definition is, in fact, so similar to dbbrouillardise that it is difficult to imagine that the Frenchmen Detienne and Vernant were not re- minded of the French concept when studying metis.1

Values of cunning are seemingly widespread throughout European society and, as Thomas Belmonte points out, relate to the picaresque tradition in European folklore and literature (1979; see also Walker 1985). For the most part these terms are prevalent among marginal peoples, like the Laviallois. Belmonte describes the importance of cunning (la furbizia) to members of the underclass in Naples, for whom it denotes a cultural mode of survival in a harsh, cut-throat environment (1979: 143-44). In another region of southern Europe Michael Herzfeld (1985) details the value of cunning (poniria) among Cretan shepherds, which, he writes, "signifies the conventionally disrespectful attitude that Greeks bring to their dealings with those in power" (p. 25).

As Erving Goffman pointed out many years ago in his analysis of what he termed ways of "making do" in American institutional settings (which are also similar to Scott's "everyday forms

TALKING ABOUT RESISTANCE 223

of resistance"), folk titles for these practices are common (1961: 200). In the Appalachian region Rhoda Halperin (1990) identified a term employ- ing similar concepts of cunning or resourcefulness-"the Kentucky way." Like dMbrouillardise, "the Kentucky way" refers to the idea of "making do" in difficult situations and overcoming hard- ships. Comparisons between these Kentucky and Auvergnat terms are particularly apt since they are both used to describe "ways of operating" among inhabitants of rural, mountainous, and historically poor regions.

The ethnographic literature also contains examples of positive values associated with behaviors interpreted as everyday resistance when no "na- tive" term or vocabulary for it is present. Douglas Foley, for example, has drawn attention to what he calls "making out" games among Hispanic adoles- cents in rural Texas, whereby students "'fiddled' with, resisted, slowed down, avoided, and redefined academic work tasks" (1990: 112). These behaviors are somewhat different from the more overt forms of resistance used among the working-class British youths ("the lads") studied by Paul Willis (1981).

Rethinking Resistance

That numerous processes of everyday resistance op- erate throughout the world in response to state hegemony seems to have come as a surprise to anthropologists (and constitutes a new theoretical "discovery"), but is more or less taken for granted by those we study. Scott (1990) argues that it is because we have focused on the official, public transcripts of culture that we have underestimated the power of subordinate peoples to formulate chal- lenges to dominant ideologies. Scott's work, especially in its arguments against notions of false consciousness and mystification (what Bourdieu [1977] calls meconnaissance), has drawn attention to an important area of social life. There is, however, a disturbing simplification in Scott's position that resistance is found in the hidden transcripts of the weak, while only compliance appears in the public transcripts of both the weak and the strong. This simplification depends upon an overdrawn view of ideology (official or unofficial) as a coherent message. As I have argued elsewhere (Reed-Danahay and Anderson-Levitt 1991), there is contradiction and ambiguity in any ideological discourse.

Moreover, the word "resistance" suggests a mechanical metaphor of solid bodies coming into

contact. Notions of "cunning" and related forms of practice, in contrast, connote an aspect of fluidity in social life, which allows for a certain amount of play or manipulation. Anthropologists often focus on values that provide a cohesiveness to maintain order in social systems. Values associated with what has been called "everyday resistance," however, suggest that cultural systems may depend as much on social fluidity, a type of "play," which sanctions the clever manipulation of meanings. The unfortunate connotations of the word resistance tend to direct attention away from such possibili- ties. Debrouillardise expresses this value. When viewed from the perspective of subordinate or sub- altern peoples, everyday resistance is, therefore, part of a more general notion of "making do" or "making out," of artfully creating and wangling cultural meanings and situations. Such behaviors are most usefully viewed not simply as reactions to (or resistance to) dominance, but as modes for the creation of new cultural meanings.

The term resistance relies upon a more explicit theoretical use of concepts of power and hegemony than does that of cunning. Abu-Lughod (1990) and Kondo (1990) have both criticized resistance theory from a Foucaultian perspective (Foucault 1980, 1982), each drawing out different problems with its original formulations, especially in the work of Scott (1985) and Willis (1981). Abu-Lughod (1990) writes that she is wary of the "romanticiza- tion" of resistance in ethnographic and historical texts, which, she argues, do not sufficiently empha- size forces of oppression. She advocates a more complex notion of power and resistance, based upon Foucault's suggestion that resistance may be a diagnostic of power rather than of freedom.

Kondo's criticisms of resistance theory, based upon her research in Japan, attack biases of indi- vidualism and agency in much of Euro-American social theory. She prefers Foucault's theory of the intertwining of power and meaning, so that "no one can be 'without' power" (1990: 221). Kondo argues against both the unified self who can "authentically resist power" (p. 224) and the notion of power as always repressive embodied in studies of resistance. Rather than pose an opposition between resistance and hegemony, which are relatively closed categories, Kondo suggests that it may be more useful to look at the creation of and struggle over meanings in everyday contexts. The perspectives of Abu- Lughod and Kondo are useful in thinking about the ways in which the Laviallois use and express con-


cepts of resistance. The Laviallois indulge in the "romance of re-

sistance" as much as do any contemporary ethnog- raphers writing about resistance, often bragging about their own underminings of the powerful. The notion of dbbrouillardise, however, speaks to a more complex system of power (more "Foucaul- tian") than the theories of Willis or Scott. That forms of power lie both with agents of dominant culture and with themselves is intrinsic to Lavial- lois perspectives on social manipulation.

Debrouillardise

The concept of dbbrouillardise is part of the arse- nal of both the weak and the strong (to use Scott's metaphors), but in different ways. The Laviallois do not label their own actions which resemble Scott's "everyday resistance" or Certeau's "everyday practices" directly as resistance. Rather, they place these within a wider category and vocabulary of action which has to do with skillfully "making do" or "making out" in difficult situations. The vocabulary of dbbrouillardise incorporates notions of both accommodation and resistance, and provides nuances for commonplace theoretical assumptions concerning official vs. unofficial ideologies or discourses.

Debrouillardise (particularly in its reflexive verb form-se dbbrouiller) subsumes the concept of resisting domination along with a variety of other forms of social manipulation or even partial accommodation. It is used in Lavialle to express the ability to be resourceful, clever, or cunning in difficult situations. This ability is primarily associated with both defensive postures toward outside threats (either natural or human) and coping strategies in everyday life. A farmer will use this term to speak of how he or she managed in the difficult birth of a calf, to describe ways of "making do" during the last war, or to boast of outwitting some- one of higher status. To be able to exhibit this skill is highly valued for both men and women, and it is felt to be an important characteristic of Auvergnat regional identity (see Reed-Danahay 1987, 1991).

Debrouillardise can imply cunning, but is not synonymous with it. To be dbbrouillard is posi- tively valued in Lavialle, whereas a person labelled ruse (literally translated in dictionaries as "cunning") is criticized and labelled dishonest. For example, a farmer who is rumored to have added water to the milk yielded by his cows in order to

get a better price is called ruse, not debrouillard. Although he has tricked the dairy, this farmer's action works against the other farmers, who get less money for the same amount of milk (and work.) There is no hard and fast rule for when a behavior will be labelled ruse or dbbrouillard-it depends upon whether or not the speaker admires or feels threatened by the action. In general, however, a person who applies "cunning intelligence" (De- tienne and Vernant 1978) in dealings with outsiders is called dabrouillard, whereas a person who applies it with neighbors is called ruse.

Other pejorative terms for cunning behavior used frequently in Lavialle include malin (for a male) and coquine (for a female). Although these may sometimes be used in a teasing manner, they suggest dishonesty. That there are so many terms for the English word "cunning" in French is, in itself, suggestive. Debrouillardise identifies, from the perspective of the Laviallois, an honest form of resourcefulness and social manipulation-which may, of course, conflict with the perception of that behavior on the part of the other party.

Debrouiller literally means to disentangle one- self, and it is also related to notions about being clear about things. The French word brouillard means fog or mist, and brouiller can mean to cloud over or to mix up. Therefore, dbbrouiller is, meta- phorically, to get out of the fog or to see clearly. In this sense dbbrouillardise is strikingly similar to the concept of demystification (Scott 1985) or ideological penetration (Willis 1981) in revisionist Marxist theory. Mystification in traditional Marx- ism refers to the theory of false consciousness, whereby a dominant ideology "operates to conceal or misrepresent aspects of social relations that, if apprehended directly, would be damaging to the in- terests of the dominant elites" (Scott 1990: 71-2). Through a process of demystification, subordinate peoples "see through," or "penetrate" in Willis' terms, the ideological hegemony of the dominant classes, and, therefore, become aware of aspects of their oppression. Dtbrouiller expresses, therefore, being able not only to manipulate or outwit people, but also ideas (including dominant ideologies).'

Le Systeme D

The vocabulary of dabrouillardise is not only an informal, local way of speaking about such forms of behavior among French paysans,8 however. It is connected to a more codified term in France-Le


Systhme D (D for dMbrouiller). This concept of social manipulation is part of French public culture, and goes hand in hand with the statist tendencies of French life (Ardagh 1987; Rogers 1991; Wylie 1963, 1975; Zeldin 1982). Le Systeme D is a common label for dealings with the French bureaucracy and, especially, ways to get around it. Lau- rence Wylie calls it the "art of wangling" (1963: 209) and explains that it refers to "any devious and usually ill-defined means by which an individual can take initiative in spite of the restrictions imposed on him by society" (p. 223). Le Systhme D is not the province of the weak. In fact, this ability to work the system is very much associated with the strong in France. Both the less formal debrouillardise and the more codified Systeme D point to a world view in which power and resistance to it are two sides of the same coin.

Le Systhme D has been widely described in the literature on France, and has vividly captured the imaginations of Anglo-American writers. John Ardagh (an English journalist) provides a description that is perhaps more revealing of attitudes towards such behavior among Anglo-saxons than of the concept itself and, therefore, deserves quoting at length:

Their lives (the French) are spent devising ingenious rules and then finding equally cunning ways of evading them. Thus they are able to cut corners and circumvent some of the bureaucratic absurdities, and this is known as 'le systeme D', a long-standing and cardinal feature of French life. That is, everyone including officials accepts that red tape can be tacitly ignored from time to time, especially when it is done between pals or over a friendly "verre." An English friend of mine with a summer villa in the Midi applied for electricity to be installed: he was told this would take years of delay and form-fill- ing-'But,' added the village mayor with a shrug, 'there's some old wiring stacked in the vaults of the mairie, and the local electrician might fix you up if you ask, but keep it quiet'. Le systeme D brings human proportion into in- human official procedures-but it may not be the way to run a modern nation in an age of high technology (1987: 621).

French concepts of national identity are closely linked to le Systhme D. In her ethnography of a rural Aveyronnais community Susan Carol Rogers writes that, for her informants, Systhme D is "not understood as having local or regional vari- ants" (1991: 195); rather, the inhabitants of Ste Foy "perceive such behavior as a response common to any reasonably alert and clever French person, as nationally uniform as the mandate inspiring it" (p. 195). Rogers' description here is reminiscent of

Herzfeld's comment on "cunning" and power in Greece.

Debrouillardise is thus part of wider, public French cultural meanings at the same time that its use in Lavialle expresses particular local meanings. The Laviallois do not generally label their behavior as operating according to Le Systhme D in everyday life. They are more apt to speak of cunning or resourceful behavior as dMbrouillardise. It is not so much that the more public concept is not part of their vocabulary or ways of operating, but rather that Le Systime D is associated more with official life in urban centers. Debrouillardise is a more in- clusive term than le Systhme D, in that it refers to social manipulation of many types, but it is in one way more specific, since it is connected to the identity of the Laviallois as rural Auvergnats. For the Laviallois, dibrouillardise relates to their strong sense of regional identity and self-view as resourceful, clever paysans, but also to their more general resistance to a state bureaucracy that presents, not just red tape, but an attempt to undermine local cultural meanings and power (see Reed-Danahay 1987). Le Systeme D is associated with "French- ness," but dMbrouillardise is associated with local and regional identity.'

Since I rarely heard the term le Systtme D used among the Laviallois, its use by Catholic teachers at a meeting for parents of children who attended their school was striking. Because the school was 40 km away, this evening meeting took place in Lavialle's community activities building. The term le Systhme D appeared on sheets of pa- per handed out to parents. Other terms listed with it included le copiage (copying schoolwork), le chapardage (pilfering), le mensonge (lying), and le vol (stealing)-recalling Scott's own catalogue of "everyday forms of resistance" (1989: 4). Whereas the other terms referred to the behavior of pupils, the religious Brothers who taught at the school tried to initiate a discussion of le Systhme D as the underlying value system for the manipulative ways in which parents tried to "help" their children.

The director of the school suggested that parents sometimes actually do the homework for their children to ensure that they get good marks. This he, said, was an example of le Syst1me D in action. This topic led to growing discomfort among the parents (most of whom were mothers) who, none- theless, evaded any outright challenge to the Broth- ers' handling of the discussion. The teachers were using le Systhme D in a pejorative sense to label


and criticize parental behavior of which they disap- proved. This use of the term is a form of "everyday domination" through which the teachers tried to assert their authority over parents (see Reed- Danahay and Anderson-Levitt 1991). The parents of Lavialle knew, however, that the best way for them to deal with such comments by teachers was se dMbrouiller, that is, to avoid open confrontation and to simply proceed as usual (which may, in some cases, include continuing to help with homework!)

I have thus far suggested that it is common for social actors in positions of subordination, like the farmers of Lavialle, to value cunning, manipulative behaviors. I have argued that these behaviors artfully combine both resistance and partial accommodation. However, it is a very different thing for an anthropologist to hear informants use a term or to ask them about concepts, than it is to be implicated in behaviors of cunning or resistance through one's own actions.

Learning About Resistance in the Field

It was through my attempts to participate in life in a rural French community through anthropological fieldwork that I came to understand the subtleties of dMbrouillardise. The process by which I came to learn about its uses and to see it in terms of a cri-

tique of resistance theory was long and complex. The most illuminating situations in which the con-

cept was used were, however, those in which I was

myself a participant. Two of these "revelatory incidents" (Fernandez 1986: xi-xii) involved my deliv-

ery of a small speech to parents and my encounter with a broken phone booth.

#1 The Speech

I came to Lavialle primarily to look at school-community relationships. Soon after I arrived there, the teachers suggested it might be a good idea for me to address the parents (most of whom I had not yet met) about my research among their children dur-

ing the upcoming parent-teacher meeting. The teachers thought this would help parents to be more comfortable about my presence at the school, and I hoped that it would help me to meet parents and lead to visits with families. I stood before the assembled group and briefly explained that I was a student from the U.S. who had come to study the life of children in a French community. (This was

a watered down, although not inaccurate, version of my fieldwork aims, which were to look at the politics of local influences on schooling). I also spoke a little about my desire to get to know people in the community and to participate in daily life in Lavialle outside of the school. I spoke in my still rusty French, using a fairly simple vocabulary.

The first time that I heard se debrouiller used in Lavialle was in the context of this short speech. After the meeting I was chatting with a small group of parents whom I had already met. They congratulated me on my handling of the presentation. One of the mothers, using the term dMbrouil- ler, said that I had managed the situation well, particularly using another language. Another mother said that if one of them had to speak in front of a group of American parents, she would have been much less at ease.

At the time I interpreted these comments at face value-as nice, supportive, friendly words. Glad that my little speech was finally over, I felt that I had expressed my goodwill toward the Lavi- allois, and that it had been reciprocated. I was, however, troubled by the use of the concept of dMbrouillardise, with which I was already ac-

quainted through Wylie's writings on Le Systhme D as a form of social manipulation in French soci-

ety. I wondered why this term was used to describe

my performance in front of the parents. In time, as I have thought about this concept

and its uses in Lavialle in a variety of contexts, I have realized that the message from the parents was not so straightforward. The parents' were sig- nalling to me that they suspected there was more to

my research than I had revealed. The mother who used se dMbrouiller to describe my behavior was in- dicating that she knew that I had engaged in some cunning and had evaded telling them of my true motives. This remark was not necessarily a con- demnation, however, and it was in many ways a compliment on my ability to exhibit a quality well- admired among the Laviallois themselves.5

This choice of terminology signalled guarded mistrust about me and my motives, especially as an outsider who had come all the way from America, but it was done in such as way that I was, in a sense, forewarned that I could not easily outwit the Laviallois. After some early suspicions that I worked for the CIA, most people in Lavialle came to see me as relatively harmless and certainly not always good at d~brouillardise. My lack of sophis- tication in Lavialle ways of cunning and manipula-


tion were particularly evident in the next example, which comes from an incident about one-third through the period of my fieldwork.

#2 The Broken Phone Booth

Four months after the talk at the school, when I had come to know several families well, I had another memorable (because troubling) encounter with the concept of dbbrouillardise. One afternoon I went to make a phone call in the public telephone booth in the central square of the major village in Lavialle. This is a highly "public" space, close to the public toilets and trash dump. When I entered the booth, I noticed that the money compartment had been removed, so that any change inserted into the telephone would come back out. My immediate reaction was that this was a case of vandalism that should be reported to the telephone company. (In France this is the P.T.T., a state-owned utility.) I immediately went to tell my neighbor, who owned a telephone, expecting that she would then call the authorities in order to have the phone repaired.

This middle-aged, life-long resident of Lavialle laughed and said that in such situations "il faut se dMbrouiller!" Calls from the booth were free, she said, and we should take advantage of the situation. If the phone was broken, that was the problem of the P.T.T., not our problem! She told me that she had already placed several phone calls to Paris and elsewhere, and she suggested that I call my parents in the United States.

This was one of those times in fieldwork that keep an ethnographer from the complacency of taking cultural meanings for granted. I see, in ret- rospect, that my reaction to the situation of the broken phone booth reflected both my own middle- class American categories, as well as my desire to be viewed in Lavialle eyes as an honest person. I had come to know my neighbor fairly well by the time of this incident and saw her daily. In my confusion over the broken phone I assumed that she would share my interpretation and reaction. That she did not was a source of further confusion and cultural ambiguity for me. Eventually the phone booth was repaired; but I never did make any long distance calls on the phone, mostly out of fear that my neighbors might criticize me for having done so. Now, however, I am certain that I was mocked for not having done so!

As my fieldwork progressed, I came more and more to understand that the Laviallois took advan-

tage of any situation in which they could outwit or manipulate the government and its agents or, for that matter, most outsiders. Whether or not they used the vocabulary of dMbrouillardise to talk about such behaviors, the Laviallois viewed them as important elements of everyday life. A ski company was very consciously manipulated by the youth group, which took advantage of a full day of cross-country skiing for all of its members (including myself), offered as a promotional ploy to secure rights to Lavialle land. The leaders of the youth group knew well that the town council had no immediate intention to do business with this company, but nevertheless enjoyed the free outing. In a perhaps more serious vein when the teachers were felt to have become too politically active in socialist politics, parents staged a series of veiled opposi- tional behaviors to undermine their authority in the school. This action was also considered cunning behavior.

These two incidents from my fieldwork capture the dual nature of dMbrouillardise: it refers both to "making out" and to "making do." As it was used in the broken phone booth incident, dMbrouiller expresses a form of everyday resistance to the state or other emblems of power. When my neighbor used the phone for free calls, she was ex- ploiting a situation that had presented itself to her and was "making out"-as in the case of the youth group and the ski company. Although I am certain that my neighbor was not involved in the original act that removed the cash box, she nevertheless seized this opportunity to take advantage of the state-owned telephone company. Her lack of identi- fication with the "P.T.T." fueled her attitude that it was "natural" to gain some profit from the situation. She would have hesitated to attack the telephone company openly, since this would violate Lavialle norms, but she was unhesitating in her desire to undermine it with a cloak of anonymity. To "make out" at the loss of the state was a valued feat because it expressed resistance to state power (as embodied in the telephone company).

In the case of my presentation to the parents the use of se dMbrouiller captures the mixture of accommodation and resistance implied in notions of cunning and "making do." The parents were re- marking on my ability to handle myself well in a difficult situation, but beyond that my attempt to turn the situation to my own advantage. I was, in my self-presentation, as I have become aware through the parents' commentary, giving a version


of my fieldwork that would appeal to the parents, children, and teachers (a form of accommodation to them?), while holding back those aspects of my inquiry dealing with issues of power that might be more troubling (a form of resistance?). By praising my ability to "make do," the parents were sug- gesting that in my handling of this public performance about my fieldwork, I was artfully combining tactics of resistance and accommodation. This use is similar to their own strategies with teachers. Their commentary on my performance was in- tended to suggest that they knew that by "making do" in this situation, I was also "making out." In this way the concept of debrouillardise provides a

meta-commentary on the subject of resistance and accommodation in social life.

Conclusions: The Rhetoric of Resistance

Anthropologists have paid little attention to mean-

ings of what we call "resistance" among the people we have studied despite the growing tendency in

ethnographic research to look for attempts by subordinate groups (such as peasants, women, and the working classes) to subvert or outwit dominant cultural forms and meanings." By looking at discourses of resistance in a cross-cultural perspective, we can gain a greater appreciation of ambiguities and contradictions associated with power, domination, and resistance. This step involves some re-

thinking of the common distinction between an-

thropological discourse (which is generally called "social theory") and the discourse of those we

study (which is usually thought of as "folklore"). Scott, for instance, writes that his own "observa- tions about power and discourse . . . are part and

parcel of the daily folk wisdom of millions," but then goes on to say that what he has "tried to do here is pursue this idea more systematically" (1990: x). Scott makes the typical assumption that his theories are systematic, and, therefore, different from the (unsystematic?) folk wisdom of the

powerless. Johannes Fabian writes that "the anthropolo-

gist and his interlocutors can only 'know' when

they meet each other in one and the same con-

temporality" (1983: 164). His important point is that this contemporality ("coevalness") needs to be acknowledged not just during fieldwork but in the writing of ethnographic texts and the formulation of "theory." Michael Herzfeld's "social poetics" approach is predicated upon such an assumption of

coevalness. Herzfeld has made important contributions to

the dismantling of the distinction between theory and ethnography in his analysis of social poetics among Cretan shepherds (1985; see also 1987). In The poetics of manhood he argues for a "semiotic perspective" that

rejects the artificial distinction between symbolic discourse and objective data, and instead treats the ethnographic text-which is no less empirical as a result-as a construction resulting from the fusion of the ethnographer's conceptual framework with that of the local informants. In this approach informants' presuppositions, whether consciously articulated or not, acquire pivotal importance (1985: 46).

The ways in which the ethnographic text is con- structed from this fusion is not spelled out by Herzfeld, but his perspective invites attempts to

clarify this step through more explicit discussions of fieldwork.

This perspective involves a humbling of our own claims about the validity of our ideas as well as a growing respect for the ideas of our informants. It also depends upon a view of our informants as social actors. The degree to which social actors are truly aware of their objective circum- stances is a subject of much debate in contemporary social theory.? A useful middle ground to this issue is suggested by Sider, who writes that

people act in terms of what they cannot understand, or understand in radically different ways, and in terms of relationships they cannot form, or sustain, or leave, as well as in terms of what "works," what they think they clearly understand and probably do (Sider 1986: 10; quoted by Vincent 1990: 405).

Debrouillardise is a way of talking about what "works."

My reflections upon Laviallois ways of talking (and thinking) about resistance have led me to rethink two major assumptions about power that I

brought to the field. The notion of dabrouillardise implies that power has more to do with the ability creatively to "make out" or "make do" than with

particular individuals with particular statuses. That is, if you can artfully manipulate a situation to

your own advantage, then you have power. This in-

sight tempers de facto assumptions about the rela- tive power of anthropologists and the people they study, that is, that the anthropologist necessarily always has "more" of it. Obviously, the anthropologist from a more powerful nation or of a higher


status than her informants represents, and can draw upon, wider realms of power. Nevertheless, in the field situation itself we are not always "in con- trol" and must adapt our methods and conceptual frameworks (see also Kenneth George, this issue). The more cunning we are in accomplishing this, however, the more power we can, paradoxically, exert.

My encounters with the Laviallois have, moreover, led me to suspect that anthropological understandings of power and resistance are culturally and class-based. That is, notions of resistance are perhaps most problematic to those of us whose An- glo-American middle-class values (or "habitus" [Bourdieu 1977]) resemble most closely those of the dominant ideology in our own culture. When I reacted to the broken phone booth with the desire to call the telephone company, I was unquestion- ably supporting a whole institutional apparatus with which I have been socialized to identify. In this response I was perhaps more "mystified" than my neighbors in Lavialle. For them, everyday resistance is a recognized "way of operating" in Certeau's terms, not a "hidden transcript" as Scott would have it.

This discussion of concepts of resistance in France raises, beyond the issue of what constitutes resistance and how power operates, questions about the relationship between theory and ethnography in European fieldwork. France is, after all, a place from which many of the most famous and influen-

tial social theories have issued. When I appeal to the theories of Michel de Certeau or Michel Fou- cault to explain behaviors among the Laviallois, am I not simply dealing with the same (or at least similar) cultural meanings in different guises (one called theory, one called folklore)? The ambivalence between resistance and accommodation in- herent in the concept of debrouillardise and its uses in Lavialle may be connected to the theme of ambivalence about the relationship between structure and agency in French social thought more generally (for instance with Durkheim, Levi- Strauss, Bourdieu, Foucault, or Certeau-who cri- tiques both Foucault and Bourdieu). A complete collapse in the distinction between these social theorists and the Laviallois would neglect the important class differences between French academics and French paysans. However, by calling attention to the similarities in ideas about power among these two groups, I hope to encourage further thinking along these lines and discourage facile assumptions about differences between official and unofficial discourses, theory and ethnography.

I do not wish to conclude here that the term resistance and its theoretical import should be ban- ished from anthropological analyses and substi- tuted with a term used by French farmers. Rather, my aim is to bring into relief the ways in which certain ways of thinking about power are restrained by the vocabularies we use to talk about it.

NOTES Acknowledgments The fieldwork described here was funded by a National Science Foundation Dissertation Fellowship and a Bourse Chateaubriand. I would like to thank Wendy Weiss, Michael Herzfeld, and two anonymous reviewers for comments on this article. I would also like to thank all fellow participants in the NEH "Poetics and Social Life" summer seminar at Indi- ana University, Bloomington (1990) for the lively discussions that helped shape the ideas presented here.

'Their own literal translation for metis in French is, however, la ruse.

2One reviewer asked me to point out that my word play here is only play because his/her dictionary showed that mystification and mist have different roots. However, the two terms share a similar etymology according to the Oxford English Dic- tionary Compact Edition, which states that mystify is "often associated with English mist" (1984: 818).

SWhen I refer to the Laviallois as paysans, I do not intend to mean that they are "peasants." Rather, I am reflecting a common terminology for contemporary French farmers (and sometimes artisans) used by both rural and urban French people. Most inhabitants of Lavialle are farmers, but they are hardly peasants. They own and run modern farms and are not marginal to the French economy. Because of the very different historical situations of American farmers and French small-

scale farmers, I use the term paysan occasionally, rather than farmer, in order to invoke the political and historical particu- larities of French rural dwellers.

4I do not mean to imply here that other French people do not use the concept of debrouillardise; rather, that the Lavial- lois associate it with what they consider to be unique regional behaviors and stances towards outsiders. They also associate the dance la boure? with local and regional culture, although it is found in other parts of France as well. This does not, however, negate its meaning to the Laviallois.

5Herzfeld describes a similar experience during fieldwork in Greece, where a comment that he had "stolen" bits of com- munication was approvingly made by his sheep-stealing informants (1985: 49-50). I thank him for pointing out this incident to me.

"In a similar vein Urciuoli (this issue) addresses the lack of attention to "auto"-representations of class status among the lower classes. Weiss' focus on the term "gringo" (this issue) is also related to informant representations-not of themselves, however, but of "us."

'See, for instance, Abercrombie et al. 1980, Martin 1987, Giddens 1984, Certeau 1984, Gambetta 1987, and Bourdieu 1977.

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