Introduction

Resistance—political, physical, or philosophical—emerges in thresholds of contact where the “sides” engage, and sometimes one side gives way to the other. Protestors stand up to the police; “post” philosophers stand up to Enlightenment humanism. Moreover, the theme of the 15th International Congress of Qualitative Inquiry was expressly oriented around a commitment to a politics of active and passive resistance; to non-violence; to bearing witness to injustice; refusing to be silenced; refusing to accept assaults on critical, interpretive inquiry; refusing to abandon the goal of social justice for all. Michael Walzer gives examples of such resistance politics drawn from civil disobedience to illustrate his point: sit-ins by auto workers in the 1930s, lunch counter protests by Black students in the 1960s, and the present-day Standing Rock encampment against the Dakota Access pipeline. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concept discussed in this book.