Constituting Self-Violent Resistance: Materiality, Embodiment, and Speech Acts

Dramatic self-violent acts, such as self-immolations and hunger strikes, often draw attention, but do not interpret or constitute themselves. In this article, theories of embodiment, materiality, and speech acts clarify the constitution of self-violent resistance as a concept for academics and activists. A novel typology is introduced to situate self-imposed suffering among other forms of resistance, such as armed conflict, nonviolent action, and suicide attacks. An original discourse analysis of self-violence across India from 2011-2016 provides empirical examples of the power dynamics involved in constituting self-violent resistance. The analysis reveals how government officials may successfully frame self-violent resistance as personal desperation driven by mental disturbance, and how social movements use the bodies, objects, and physical spaces involved to declare a seemingly personal act as public resistance. This article contributes to the field of resistance studies by moving beyond generalized references to cultural frames in explaining self-violent resistance, clarifying the contested status of self-violence in relation to the usual violence/nonviolence dichotomy, and demonstrating how theories of embodiment and materiality reveal the differing logics behind self-violent, violent, and nonviolent tactics. Exploring what gets counted as self-violent resistance and who becomes authorized to conduct self-violent resistance is important not only as an exercise in concept formation but also for understanding how individual embodied practices become sites of wider struggle.