The power and politics of precarious resistance

What are the consequences of contemporary global capitalism for collective resistance? This chapter explores the terrain of precarious resistance, with particular attention to sources of power and political dynamics. First, I discuss varied forms of informalization and economic insecurity, including the growing significance of precarious workers and surplus populations. The second section turns to questions of power, highlighting especially the various ways in which economically insecure groups may compensate for their structural weakness through forms of associational power. The third section examines the politics of solidarity and class formation, and notes a growing emphasis on non-work and non-class identities, such as race, gender and geography. Fourth, drawing upon the theoretical discussion, I compare and contrast two cases of collective action by economically insecure groups: struggles for public- service delivery by the urban poor in South Africa; and struggles for state-implemented welfare boards by informal workers in India.