ABSTRACT
Strategic silence may take the forms of both engagement and non-engagement. As it is impossible to define silence without its opposite, non-silence, so it is impossible to think of engagement without its counterpart, non-engagement. Ontologically, like silence in relation to non-silence, non-engagement is neither worse nor better than engagement. Both categories convey meaning to each other in their dialectic contradiction. Complicit silence is the silence of a weaker party in struggle. This chapter starts with the ontological neutrality of engagement and disengagement. It argues that disengagement could also have a positive value. Similarly, engagement could have a negative one. Resistance, for once, is not only opposition and negativity against dominance and power. As discursive practice, it is loaded with positivity, although in an invisible way. It is also 'a critical and ultimately generative reflective process'. Resistance may translate into vocal engagement, but it often starts as disengaged silence.
