Defying Guantánamo: Resistance to indefinite detention and torture in a prison camp

How can we conceptualize resistance within contexts of detention and extreme asymmetrical violence such as torture prisons? Based on autobiographical accounts of and interviews with former Guantánamo prisoners, this article reconstructs how prisoners dealt with indefinite detention and torture. Based on a dialogue between existing theories of resistance and empirical accounts from Guantánamo, a framework of resistance is developed that operates on three conceptual axes: (1) By looking into the perceptual structure of the detainees’ practices, four modes of resistance are identified: confrontational resistance, concealed resistance, disguised resistance, and internal resistance. These modes vary with respect to whether they can be observed by the camp administration and whether they can be recognized as acts of resistance. (2) By analyzing the situational dynamic of acts of resistance, different degrees of radicalness can be distinguished within each mode. While circular acts seek to alleviate the harmful effects of the environment, transgressive acts seek to end imprisonment. (3) Finally, because circular acts of resistance mitigate specific violations, it is instructive to identify the dimensions of vulnerability that these acts primarily address (corporality, sociality, meaning). Analyzing Guantánamo in such a way does not only open an instructive perspective on detention, torture, and the logics of resistance in the camp but also reveals more general implications for the comparative study of resistance in camps and prisons.