Nobody in the class chose refusal. Plenty chose revolution—more than I have ever had—and the reconciliation people stood up fastest of all. But refusal, the one response that rejects the legitimacy of the system rather than fighting inside it, had no takers. For Intro to Anthropology we read chapter 10 in The Human Story.
Architecture: this page is the extended treatment of the chapter’s four responses to injustice—resistance, refusal, revolution, reconciliation—including the sovereignty question and Audra Simpson’s Mohawk Interruptus at length. For the full chapter lecture, covering aggression, warfare, the archaeology of when war begins, and structural violence, see Warfare and Agriculture. For refusal as anthropological method, see The Anthropology of Refusal. For broader context, see the Power Analysis hub.
A note on the poll, because it inverted the following year: this class produced the largest group of revolutionaries I have ever taught and not one person who chose refusal. The next year’s class produced the opposite—nobody chose revolution at all. They were tired.
Key Concepts
- The textbook offers four responses to injustice and structural violence: resistance, refusal, revolution, and reconciliation (308–311).
- Public resistance is visible and collective—petitions, strikes, boycotts—and marshals attention to a cause (308–309).
- Hidden resistance is harder to suppress: you slow your work down rather than strike, because strikers can be fired (308–309).
- Language revitalization is resistance—reclaiming a language that colonization took away is a move against the imposed order (309).
- Refusal rejects the legitimacy of an unjust law rather than working against it from inside (310).
- Some Indigenous people refuse citizenship in the settler state entirely, holding their own nation’s citizenship instead (310).
- Audra Simpson’s Mohawk Interruptus documents refusal of the concept of citizenship across a reservation spanning the US–Canada border.
- Reconciliation exposes truth and establishes responsibility so a community can move forward—but it requires two willing parties (311).
Which One Would You Choose?
I asked the class to pick which of the four responses they thought was most appropriate, then had each group stand up.
The revolutionaries were the biggest group by a wide margin—the most I have ever had. Some of them were so revolutionary they didn’t even come to class. The reconciliation people stood up fast; they’re nice that way. Then I called for the refusal people, which is its own small problem: if you’re a refusal person, what should you do when told to stand up? You’re supposed to not stand up. Good refusal people.
But there were no refusal people. They refused to choose.
That absence is worth sitting with, because refusal is the response that does something the other three don’t.
Resistance
Resistance means fighting back against injustice in ways that challenge the system (308–309). There’s a public side—circulating petitions, going on strike, organizing boycotts, marshaling attention to a cause. This is resistance you can see, and it’s what most people picture.
But there’s also hidden resistance. If you go on strike you might get fired or taken down. So instead you slow your work down. Nobody knows you’re not doing the work. You keep going, but not explicitly. It is much harder to take down somebody who is resisting this way, precisely because there’s nothing to point at.
There’s another form of resistance that might not look like resistance at first. Where people have been colonized and had their language taken away from them, bringing that language back is a way of resisting the order that was imposed. Language revitalization is resistance (309).
Refusal
The line between resistance and refusal is sometimes iffy—resistance can shade into refusal. But refusal goes further (310). Refusal means that when you think a law is unjust, you’re not going to follow it.
What makes refusal distinct is visible when an Indigenous or Native American group says: you don’t have control over us. In some communities that extends to citizenship itself—I’m not going to be a citizen of your state, because I have my own citizenship and my own identity (310).
This is not as far away as it sounds. Not far from here there is a Native American reservation that spans the border between the United States and Canada. People there are supposed to be able to cross that border freely on the basis of their membership, without a passport. Some of them see themselves as members of neither the United States nor Canada, but of their own Indigenous nation, and they refuse to accept the sovereignty of either colonial country.
Audra Simpson on Refusing Citizenship
The textbook points to Audra Simpson’s Mohawk Interruptus, which is about exactly this—people trying to refuse the concept of citizenship itself. Simpson, who is Mohawk, treats refusal not as a failure to participate but as a political position with content: your authority is not legitimate over me.
For Simpson’s deeper argument about refusal as both political stance and anthropological method, see The Anthropology of Refusal.
What Sovereignty Actually Means
Sovereignty refers to governing a territory. The United States claims sovereignty because it is an independent country. But sovereignty comes in degrees, and Puerto Rico is the clearest way to see that.
Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States. If you are born in Puerto Rico you are a United States citizen—but you don’t have the right to vote in presidential elections. So technically that is not sovereignty. Sovereignty means a condition of autonomy, independence, being able to govern yourself.
Refusing sovereignty follows from this. If you are in Puerto Rico advocating for an independent Puerto Rico, you are refusing the sovereignty of the United States over that territory. Some people in Puerto Rico want statehood instead. It’s hard to say how it resolves, and people have genuinely different takes on it.
Revolution
Revolution means challenging the state and trying to create a new government (311). We sometimes think of revolution as necessarily violent, and sometimes it is. But revolution can also happen when a large group of people protests and a government falls, replaced by a new one without warfare.
We do learn about the American Revolution. Somebody put a tariff on something and the next thing you know there’s a bunch of people going into revolution.
Reconciliation
Reconciliation begins with exposing the truth about what happened (311). You’re not trying to deny it. You bring the truth to light, you call people out, you establish that people did this wrong and establish that responsibility. From there, the community or the country can go on. Nothing has been swept under the rug, and you’re moving forward in peace—you don’t have to resist or have a revolution anymore.
One example came near the end of Joe Biden’s presidency. In October 2024 he traveled to the Gila River Indian Community in Arizona and officially apologized, on behalf of the federal government, for the Indian boarding schools. Before that, the federal government had not acknowledged this as a problem at all. The apology acknowledged that a mistake was made and that people made it—exposing truth and establishing responsibility, as a foundation for working together and moving forward.
Reconciliation people are nice, but that’s not really what it is. It’s understanding what has to happen and taking accountability for it. A lot of anthropologists like this approach.
We Need More Refusal
Each response has its place. I appreciate resistance. Revolution seems so hard—it seems like you’re going to get crushed. Reconciliation would actually have been my favorite, except that it’s hard to reconcile with people who are not in the mood to be reconciled with. If somebody says “nah, I’m not reconciling with you,” it’s hard to go down that road. Reconciliation takes two willing parties, which is what makes it both hopeful and difficult.
Refusal occupies a different space. It doesn’t ask for reform and it doesn’t require overthrowing anything. It says: your authority is not legitimate over me. I have my own identity, my own nation, my own way of being that exists outside your categories.
We need more refusal.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between resistance and refusal?
Resistance fights back against injustice from within a system, whether publicly through strikes and boycotts or quietly by slowing down work (308–309). Refusal rejects the legitimacy of the system itself—when you think a law is unjust, you don’t follow it (310). The line is sometimes iffy, and resistance can shade into refusal, but refusal makes a claim about authority rather than about policy.
What is hidden resistance?
Hidden resistance is resistance that doesn’t announce itself. Going on strike can get you fired, so instead people slow their work down without anyone knowing. It is much harder to suppress than public resistance because there is nothing explicit to point at (308–309).
What is Audra Simpson’s Mohawk Interruptus about?
It documents Mohawk people refusing the concept of citizenship in the settler states whose border runs through their territory. Members are supposed to cross that border freely without a passport on the basis of their membership; some refuse to accept the sovereignty of either the United States or Canada, identifying with their own nation instead.
Is language revitalization a form of resistance?
Yes (309). Where colonization removed a language, teaching and reviving it works against the order that was imposed. It may not look like resistance at first because nothing is being confronted directly, but it undoes a central mechanism of colonial control.
What does sovereignty mean, and can it be refused?
Sovereignty is the capacity to govern a territory—a condition of autonomy and independence. It comes in degrees: people born in Puerto Rico are United States citizens but cannot vote in presidential elections, so that is not full sovereignty. Refusing sovereignty means denying another state’s claim to govern you, as in advocating for an independent Puerto Rico.
Course Navigation
- Previous class: Warfare and Agriculture – Chapter 10, first half: why organized violence is recent, and structural violence
- Next class: Sex and Gender in Anthropology – Chapter 11
- The Anthropology of Refusal – Simpson, Ferguson, and Consent’s Revenge
- Warfare Is Not Genetic – Fuentes on evolutionary synthesis
- Biology and Power – Extended evolutionary synthesis
- Power Analysis Hub – Anthropology and structures of power