Abstract
The present article looks at the politics of the camp and investigates the way in which detainees claim their right to a political and meaningful life against bare life. The question I look at is whether bare life might be resisted from within camps and how this resistance should be conceptualised. How are we to judge resistance? According to the modalities through which resistance is enacted? Or according to the subjects involved in those acts? Or indeed according to (political) outcomes? This article starts by scrutinising Agamben's Homo Sacer and its understanding of camp and bare life. It claims that more attention should be given to the way in which acts of open dissent blend with coping strategies, to the point of making some dissenting acts almost imperceptible. Special attention is given to the concept of dailiness, as articulated in the work of De Certeau, Scott and Bleiker, as well as to Isin's concept of ‘acts of citizenship’ and to the way in which such acts are performed in an attempt to disrupt sovereign violence.
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