Resistance to financialization : Insights about collective resistance through distancing and persistence from two ethnographic studies

The purpose of this paper is to contribute with knowledge about how resistance to the neo-liberal agenda is made possible, especially through renewal and reproduction of collective communities.

Using two ethnographical studies, one of a chamber orchestra and one of a shipping company for illustrating resistance.

It is resistance through distancing and creation of a “hidden script” that prevents the collective community from be broken down by individualization. However, resistance through distancing needs to be combined with resistance through persistence in order to become intelligent.

The paper makes use of ethnographic studies to investigate possibilities of resistance. The study has also found it fruitful to combine James Scott's (1990) notion of collectively created hidden scripts with Collinson's (1992, 1994) notion of resistance through distancing and persistence.