Form Of Resistance Research Articles

Movement escalation and mobilization for resistance: From anti-coup protest to ‘People's War’ in Myanmar

Protest campaigns have proven an effective form of contention to challenge authoritarian rule yet can at times escalate into armed conflict. This article aims to explain how a protest movement can escalate to an uprising by examining the case of Myanmar, where the 2021 military coup prompted the emergence of a diverse movement of strike groups, civil society, ousted Burman-majority parliamentarians, and ethnic minority resistance organizations. Based on original interviews with movement members, the article traces how repression triggered escalation and spurred increased cooperation among movement actors that resulted in an armed uprising. Building primarily on social movements and contentious politics studies, this article argues effective campaign framing was critical in maintaining movement unity and legitimizing violence as a form of resistance. Mobilization of resources in social networks and coalition networks was key to organizing armed resistance. The article contributes novel insights by showing that a diverse movement can strengthen cooperation to mount armed resistance, instead of fragment during escalation as studies have often found. The article also deepens our understanding of how movements with links to established armed actors may escalate, as it details how cooperation between mainstream protestors and armed actors can transform a movement into armed resistance.

Contesting the Kemalist State: The Land Question and the Grass Root Civic Activity in the 1920–1930s Turkey

The author scrutinizes the development of civil society in the early republican Turkey focusing on the models of its interaction with the state in the context of Kemalist revolution, namely the large-scale reforms of the 1920s and 1930s aimed at building the “New Turkey” as a modern secular nation-state. He analyses various manifestations of grass root civic activity in Turkey in the 1920s and 1930s. In doing so, it focuses on the rural population’s reaction to the Kemalist land and taxation reforms. The article contributes to the exiting literature in two following ways. First, it challenges the existing assumption that the rural population of the early Republican Turkey sporadically protested against only the most visible cases of social injustice. It also suggests counterarguments to the thesis that at that time the center and periphery had their own socio-political dynamics isolated one from another. Second, the article introduces to the reader a wide range of Turkish sources (e.g., “public columns” in the main periodicals of that time, petitions published in the yearly books of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey, party inspectors’ reports stored in the fund of the Republican People’s Party). An analysis of the data presented in these sources and its comparison against already known historical facts form the article’s methodological framework. The author explains the key social contradictions about the land question. He further on defines the main forms of systemic grass root civic activity and the structural elements of the Kemalists social basis on the periphery. The main findings are that in the 1920–30s the rural Turkey witnessed both legal and illegal forms of resistance. The absence of a full-scale working formal state structure on the periphery made the Kemalist state curbing this resistance by using patron-client networks centered on the figures of “aga”, the wealthy local landlords and merchants.

The Translator as a Colonial Agent: Reframing the South in the English Translation of Season of Migration to the North

This paper sets out to examine the translation of Tayeb Salih's Season of Migration to the North in light of Narrative theory. In his work, Salih is writing back to the empire as a form of resistance against British Colonialism. The translation seems to tone this resistance down by constructing a narrative that underlines the superiority of the North over the South. The paper attempts to offer a fresh perspective as it explores how the South is reframed in the target text to be represented to the target audience. It also attempts to answer the question of how the East/South is narrated and whether it has been (dis)empowered in the novel’s translation. Given the importance of the text, It is essential to investigate how the novel has been introduced in the West using a strong and adaptable framework capable of capturing the complexities of the interactions among various powers involved. Narrative theory offers such a framework and is particularly suitable for the current study.

“Real Comrades in Struggle and Suffering”: Women’s Experiences in the Vapniarka Concentration Camp

Abstract From the 1200 Jews interned at the Vapniarka concentration camp, slightly over one hundred were women. A regime of extermination was imposed in the early months of captivity through the toxic pea fodder distributed as food. More than half of the survivors remained either with paralysis or some other permanent illness. This article focuses on the female experience in the camp, the self-perception of women in contrast to the representation of women by men, as expressed through various narratives such as novel testimonies, oral histories, and autobiographies. Using narrative analysis I show how the prisoners of Vapniarka perceived their participation in different forms of resistance to fascist attempts at extermination and how time and place of telling impacted the language used. This is the first article focusing on the topic of the women of Vapniarka.

Branding Mythology in Postmodern Culture Sampoerna Cigarette Advertising A-Mild version "Nanti juga lo Paham"

Advertising is an important instrument in Marketing Communication to build a Product Image. However, with the Republic of Indonesia Law number 32 of 2002 concerning Broadcasting, article 46 prohibits the promotion of cigarettes by displaying their appearance. To get around this, Sampoerna A-Mild cigarettes broadcast advertisements in the "You'll Understand" version which has meaning and mythology requirements. What mythology is used in branding to show the ideology of building a strong image for A-Mild Cigarettes? Through a postmodern philosophical approach in popular culture, this research wants to dismantle the sole dominance of Modernity. Using Roland Barthes' textual analysis method, it was revealed that the advertisement gave a strong meaning that the Sampoerna A-Mild cigarette advertisement wanted to create a masculine, strong, glamorous image in communal culture, as a form of resistance to the dominance of single modernity.

Repositioning Religious Organization Activism in The Digital Era

The rise of the digital world poses a challenge to the position of religious organizations. This is evident in the emergence of new authorities, both individuals and groups, outside traditional religious structures. Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), a mainstream traditional organization, has also been impacted by this shift. However, several studies indicate that NU has effectively adapted to various challenges and situations over time. This analysis focuses on how NU, as a representative of traditional mainstream Islamic organizations, has repositioned itself in response to the digital era, using the example of its activities in Mojokerto. This work addresses two key issues: first, how NU adapts to the presence of social media; second, what strategies NU employs to reposition itself in the face of these new challenges on social media. To explore these questions, this work employs a qualitative methodology, collecting data through interviews, observations, and documentation. The data is then analyzed and presented using a digital religion approach. The findings suggest that NU has repositioned itself in two main ways. First, through adaptation, by adopting and actively using social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube via the organization’s official accounts. Second, through a form of resistance, by having NU activists engage on social media without prominently displaying their organizational affiliation.

Exploring the empathic potential of 360-degree documentary

ABSTRACT This paper provides an exploration of the creative and ethical challenges that emerged from producing a 360-degree documentary demo, focusing on two Greek drag artists who live in Athens. It introduces a new approach to understanding empathy at the level of practice and from the perspective of audiences, combining the production of the demo with a reflexive analysis of audience responses to the demo. Emphasis is placed on the potential of 360-degree documentary to develop emotional and cognitive empathy. The demo aimed to capture the drag artists’ performance as a form of resistance, using an innovative technology to portray this under-represented community. A reflexive methodology was deployed for analysing the data, which were collected in the form of 360-degree video and focus groups with participants experiencing the demo. The findings of this study provide insights into the possibility of 360-degree documentary to create change. During the production of the demo, moments of perspective-taking between the researcher and the documentary subjects were rare. The focus groups pointed to aspects which also hindered the empathic potential of the demo, including the diverging expectations of participants and the levels of participants’ familiarity with this technology.

Italy’s colonial archives and its history of racial violence. An interview with Gaia Giuliani, author of Bianco e nero. Storia dell’identità razziale degli italiani (2013) and Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy. Intersectional Representations in Visual Culture (2019)

ABSTRACT This interview is dedicated to the pioneering work of Gaia Giuliani in critical race, whiteness and postcolonial Italian studies in Italy and internationally, over ten and five years, respectively, from the publication of Bianco e nero: Storia dell'identità razziale degli italiani (with Cristina Lombardi-Diop, Mondadori Education, 2013) and Race, Nation and Gender in Modern Italy: Intersectional Representations in Visual Culture (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019). Shelleen Greene is an associate professor of Cinema and Media Studies in the Department of Film, Television and Digital Media at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television. Her Equivocal Subjects: Between Italy and Africa – Constructions of Race and Nation in the Italian Cinema (Bloomsbury, 2012) set a milestone in scholarship on Italian visual culture and race. Lorgia Garcia Peña, scholar and activist, is a professor of Latinx Studies at the Effron Center for the Study of America and the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Her Translating Blackness (Duke, 2022) conceived Latinx Caribbean diaspora (also in Italy) as part of both Black migrants’ oscillating border-crossings and their forms of resistance to colonialism and racism. Both scholars have long been in dialogue with Giuliani’s scholarship.

Genetic Diversity Robinia pseudoacacia L. Growing in Drought Conditions using ISSR

Background: The aim of this study was to evaluate the genetic polymorphism of two populations of introduced R. pseudoacacia growing under drought conditions using ISSR markers. The individuals of R. pseudoacacia from two populations grow in the Ergeninskaya Upland, where a low level of moisture supply is observed. The difference between the populations lies in the conditions of growth, with the first population having a less favorable hydrothermal regime. Methods: ISSR markers were used to analyze the genetic structure of R. pseudoacacia. During this analysis, 6 out of 18 ISSR primers with a high information content were selected. Polymorphism and genetic diversity of ISSR loci in R. pseudoacacia were evaluated in two populations based on the obtained electropherograms using POPGENE v 1.31. Result: The study revealed that individuals of R. pseudoacacia growing in less favorable conditions have the greatest polymorphism of ISSR loci. Among individuals of the first population of R. pseudoacacia, the highest proportion of polymorphism was observed when using ISSR primers UBC 808 and UBC 826. Comparison of the obtained results of genetic structure analysis and the vital state showed that individuals with higher polymorphism, particularly using UBC 808 and UBC 826, have a more pronounced resistance to soil moisture deficit. The obtained results can be further used for selection and developing new resistant forms of R. pseudoacacia.

Soil organic carbon sequestration potential explained by mineralogical and microbiological activity using spectral transfer functions

The ability of soil to sequester carbon and reduce atmospheric CO2 concentrations is limited and depends on the soil minerals and their interaction with the microbiota. Microbial activities are closely associated with the types and amounts of soil organic matter (SOM) and clay minerals that have functional groups that interact with energy in Vis NIR-SWIR and Mid-IR wavelengths. The main objective of this research was to determine, based on these spectral ranges, the relation between mineralogical and organic compounds, as their sequestration and specialization in soils from Brazil. It was possible to map microbiological activity by spectral transfer functions and digital soil mapping reaching R2 from 0.77 to 0.85. Multiple regression equations were constructed to quantify enzymatic activity, microbial biomass carbon (MBC), particulate organic matter (POM), and resistant forms of carbon, and SOM associated with the mineral fraction (MAOM). All these properties were detected by specific bands obtained with the recursive feature elimination (RFE) algorithm, reaching correlations from 0.64 to 0.98 in specific ranges. The prediction model of the carbon sequestration potential was adjusted with microbiological and mineralogical variables from Vis-NIR-SWIR and the Mid-IR spectral range. A SARAR double autoregressive model was adjusted with r 0.61 and to a spatial error model (SEM) with r 0.7. The explanatory variables were associated with kaolinite, hematite, goethite, gibbsite, and the abundance of fungi, actinomycetes, vesico-arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi, enzymatic activity of beta-glucosidase, urease and phosphatase, and POM. Among the microbiological variables, the general abundance of fungi was the most important, in contrast to enzymatic activity that was the least important. The interaction between the different maps constructed and historical land use allowed the identification of areas that contribute to sequestering new carbon and could be the key to climate change mitigation strategies.

‘This coconut was the one that finally worked’: cursing for peace and justice in Sri Lanka

ABSTRACT This article analyses how Sandya Ekneligoda re-purposes cultural and religious cursing rituals to challenge disappearances, impunity, and illiberal peacebuilding in post-war Sri Lanka. Drawing on several cosmologies (principally Buddhist and Hindu), she invokes archetypal female deities/demons for healing and revenge. She uses performances of ritual cursing not only to keep her husband’s disappearance in the public eye and to critique domestic justice processes, but also to connect with other families of the disappeared across Sri Lanka’s ethnic, religious, and linguistic divides. In January 2022, she performed a cursing ritual against the ruling Rajapaksa clan, which ended with smashing a coconut. Six months later, a popular uprising had ejected the Rajapaksas from power. The article makes an original empirical contribution to the peacebuilding and transitional justice literature, which highlights the need to pay greater attention to (female) cosmological power, negative emotions, and non-liberal forms of resistance to illiberal peacebuilding.

Programming tumor evolution with selection gene drives to proactively combat drug resistance.

Most targeted anticancer therapies fail due to drug resistance evolution. Here we show that tumor evolution can be reproducibly redirected to engineer therapeutic opportunity, regardless of the exact ensemble of pre-existing genetic heterogeneity. We develop a selection gene drive system that is stably introduced into cancer cells and is composed of two genes, or switches, that couple an inducible fitness advantage with a shared fitness cost. Using stochastic models of evolutionary dynamics, we identify the design criteria for selection gene drives. We then build prototypes that harness the selective pressure of multiple approved tyrosine kinase inhibitors and employ therapeutic mechanisms as diverse as prodrug catalysis and immune activity induction. We show that selection gene drives can eradicate diverse forms of genetic resistance in vitro. Finally, we demonstrate that model-informed switch engagement effectively targets pre-existing resistance in mouse models of solid tumors. These results establish selection gene drives as a powerful framework for evolution-guided anticancer therapy.

Relationship of insulin resistance with microvascular and macrovascular complications, death rate and other factors in patients with type 2 diabetes: A case-control study

Abstract: There is a lack of studies analyzing Severe Insulin Resistance (SIR) forms, especially from clinical aspects. The main objective of this research was to assess the relationship between micro- and macrovascular complications and the death rate of patients with SIR. Methods: It was a partially prospective case-control study of 120 participants with T2DM. Patients with doses of insulin >1 IU/kg/day were considered to have SIR (case group), with an insulin requirement of <1 IU/kg/day - control group. Statistical analyses were performed. Results: Regarding microvascular complications, an association was found between insulin doses and the rate of Diabetic Nephropathy (DN) in the case group compared with the control group (138 vs. 170 IU/day), p = 0.002. Men with T2DM and SIR were more likely to present with myocardial infarction than women (39.3% vs. 13.3%); p = 0.036. Subjects of the case group with lower eGDR (2.44 vs. 1.35) (or higher insulin resistance) were more likely to suffer a stroke, p = 0.003. Case group males were more likely than females to undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery (21.4% vs. 3.3%); p = 0.048. Higher mortality was observed in the case group of patients with lower eGDR (1.01 vs. 1.85); p = 0.031. Conclusion: As for microvascular outcomes, the rate of DP and DR was similar in both control and case groups. Only the rate of DN in the case group was associated with higher insulin doses. Macrovascular complications such as stroke, myocardial infarction, and bypass surgery were related to the male gender and SIR, as well as higher mortality according to eGDR.

Role of extracorporeal photopheresis in the management of acute and chronic graft versus disease: current status.

Extracorporeal photopheresis (ECP) is a therapy that combines the collection of mononuclear cells by apheresis, the addition of a photosensitizer (8-methoxisoralen), the illumination of the product with ultraviolet A light, and the immediate infusion of the product to the patient. Initially developed and approved to treat T-cell cutaneous lymphomas, soon started to be used to treat graft versus host disease (GvHD) developed after allogeneic hematopoietic-cell transplantation. The high response rate of ECP in skin, ocular, oral, pulmonary, and liver forms of chronic GvHD, the steroid-sparing effect, and the improved overall survival of treated patients, made ECP one of the second-line treatments used to treat steroid-resistant acute and chronic GVHD. Recently, the development of new drugs for treating GVHD has changed the position of ECP in the therapy of GVHD and has started to be used in combination with drugs for increasing the response rate to the treatment in severe or resistant forms of acute and chronic GVHD. ECP remains an essential therapeutic resource in the management of patients with refractory acute and chronic GVHD.

Design, Synthesis, and the Biological Evaluation of Some New Fused Thiazolotriazine Derivatives

Thiazolotriazine is an essential medicinal chemistry molecule due to its biological properties, particularly antifungalactivity. Antifungal drug resistance is rising worldwide, necessitating the development of innovative, safer, and more effectiveantifungals. This study intended to uncover safer and more effective thiazolotriazine antifungals. ProTox II software was employedto forecast the toxicity of the designed thiazolotriazines. The pharmacokinetic parameters were calculated using the Swiss-ADMEdatabase. The Molecular Operating Environment software (2019.0102 version) was employed for the docking studies utilizing 14-α-demethylase protein (PDB ID: 3LD6). Compounds 4c, 4d, and 4e were prepared and evaluated for in vitro antifungal activity.The computational studies revealed compounds 4a, 4b, 5b, 5c, 6b, 6c and 6d as carcinogenic; 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d and 4e demonstratedbetter pharmacokinetic behaviour; and docking results of 4c, 4d, and 4e were superior than fluconazole (FLU). The moleculardocking studies establish 4c, 4d, and 4e as SDM inhibitors, suggesting a mechanism similar to FLU and ketoconazole (KET). Theantifungal activity evaluation revealed 4d (MIC = 6.25 μg/ml) as a more potent antifungal agent than KET (MIC = 12.5 μg/ml) andFLU (MIC = 12.5 μg/ml). Compounds 4c and 4e showed equal antifungal activity to KET (MIC = 12.5 μg/ml) and FLU (MIC = 12.5μg/ml). Compounds 4c, 4d, and 4e displayed encouraging antifungal activity with a favorable safety profile. Assessing the broadspectrum of 4c, 4d, and 4e against various pathogenic fungi, including resistant forms, is recommended.

What is translanguaging and raciolinguistics doing in the field of curriculum studies?

This article critically examines the intersections of translanguaging, raciolinguistics, and curriculum studies within the context of Latin America. It interrogates how dominant discourses and practices perpetuate coloniality and linguistic hierarchies in the region. Through an analysis of a special issue of the Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, the paper explores how emergent scholarship challenges the hegemony of Global English and disrupts colonial narratives embedded in national educational policies. By theorizing curriculum at the intersection of translanguaging, raciolinguistics, and sociopolitical contexts, this article advocates for a counter-curriculum that prioritizes the epistemic agency of historically excluded communities. Translanguaging practices emerge as a form of resistance, underscoring the role pedagogy plays in subverting dominant language ideologies. They challenge Eurocentric ways of knowing by advancing inclusive pedagogies rooted in local knowledges and linguistic diversity. Ultimately, the article advocates for a decolonial curriculum that prioritizes linguistic autonomy, cultural pluralism, and epistemic justice in Latin America and beyond.

The Academic Question of Palestine

This article provides theoretical and contextual background to The Academic Question of Palestine. Building on the work of Edward Said, we maintain that Palestine constitutes a unique question with special status in international academic spaces, particularly in the West, because of its entanglement with other imperial and settler colonial forms of dispossession. We argue that the special place that Zionism and its defence has occupied for decades in academia has rendered Palestine one of the thorniest and most divisive issues of our time. In the new millennium, the birth of the BDS movement; the emergence of new solidarities with global anti-racist movements; the scholarly and human rights consensus that Israel constitutes a regime settler colonial apartheid; the acceleration of Zionist violence, until the Gaza genocide, have generated new forms of repression and resistance in the academic space. This Special Issue offers the tools for understanding these recent transformations of the question of Palestine.

Racialized Railway Mobilities: Repression and Resistance in the Anglophone South African Short Story During the Drum Decade

ABSTRACT South Africa has a complex history of racialized (im)mobilities. During the social engineering of apartheid, the city became a racialized white space that was dependent on black migrant workers who were forced to live in the marginal spaces on the edge of the city. This daily commute was enabled through the construction of public transportation systems and commuter railways. This mundane and banal form of mobility became a key site of both repression and resistance during the apartheid era. The present article explores how these racialized railway mobilities were represented during the ‘Drum decade’ of the 1950s in South Africa. It explores how the short story, as a liminal genre positioned within local and transnational literary cultures, is mobilized to narrate railway mobilities during this transitional decade. Texts analyzed include the news reports and short stories by Can Themba, Es’kia Mphahlele, and Nat Nakasa. This article explores how the mobile public spaces of the railways and the mobile figures of railway passengers were mobilized in the Anglophone South African short story as a form of resistance to the repression of the apartheid era.

Undocumented Futures: Afrofeminist Conviviality in Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street

Abstract: This article thinks with Chika Unigwe's On Black Sisters' Street (2009) to conceptualise "Afrofeminist conviviality" as a form of resistance that enables repair on two levels. Afrofeminist conviviality offers the possibility of preventing the trafficked sex worker's social death. It also gestures, however provisionally, towards the possibility of flourishing for the subaltern subject outside the liberal, moralist binaries of free will and coercion. On Black Sisters' Street interweaves stories by four undocumented West African women trafficked from Lagos, Nigeria to Antwerp, Belgium. Afrofeminist conviviality can capture something of both the historical weight of resistance and the open-ended trajectory for the undocumented African sex worker towards less violent futures. It thus communicates a sense of becoming that is caring, affirmative, and recuperative, while also being incomplete, irregular, and irreverent. On Black Sisters' Street allows for accounting the reparative possibilities for trafficked sex workers against the sheer cruelty of the global sex market. At the same time, On Black Sisters' Street remains resolute in its hope for the thriving of the trafficked women in their undocumented futures, however unauthorised, informal, and outlawed those may be.

AGENCY AND POWER OF COASTAL COMMUNITIES: Assembling Micro Infrastructures as Everyday Resistance and Resilience in North Jakarta's Port

AbstractThe rise of the global supply chain has intensified the circulation of goods and capital across the world. While the body of literature on the politics and political‐economy aspects of logistical expansion has grown, little attention has been given to understanding how coastal fishers’ communities interact with the ongoing development of mega infrastructure. I argue that it is essential to place spatial and temporal specificity at the centre of analysis to further understanding of everyday resistance and resilience. In this article, I use a case study of the Port development in Jakarta to argue that renegotiating and reworking space and place amid the development of the mega port is a form of nonviolent everyday resistance and resilience that operates under, but also against, the capitalist political‐economy configuration. I focus on everyday resistance, particularly Asef Bayat's concept of quiet encroachment, and resilience literature to demonstrate the development and contested usage of micro and temporary infrastructures, both at household and community levels, as a material example of how diverse groups in communities exercise their agency and power, and express everyday resistance and resilience differently. Through this article, I aim to contribute to the broader literature on a situated political urban ecology, particularly on everyday resistance and resilience in postcolonial urbanism.