ABSTRACT
All cultures have internal resistance, but not all internal resistances give rise to opposition movements and insurgencies. Ann Norton points out (2004: 67) that oppositions within a culture create networks of meaning that, by their very existence, provide contrapuntal denitions of the larger institutional and political networks of state and society. Certainly, this is a process that is broadened and intensied when there is an ethnonational culture within a dominant culture. At times, the intensity of the we-them distinctions, layered with other meanings, becomes so great that it contributes to violent opposition. This is what happened in Chechnya in the 1990s, when the region went from the euphoria of apparent independence, to war, and then to defeat and devastation. Of course, it was not a rebellion just of meanings and symbols. There were key shifts in the structure of the state as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and opening political opportunities in its peripheral regions, but because the Chechen rebellion was richly enmeshed in the various symbolisms of its traditional culture, and especially its historical relation to Islam, this far-off region is a good laboratory for analyzing the role of culture, its relation to structural shifts, and the creative application of agency and strategic innovation.
