Opposing the opposition? Binarity and complexity in political resistance

Abstract

This article explores dimensions of political action that transgress the limitations of traditionally modern, opposition-focused conceptualisations. While there has been a turn to new non-oppositional ontologies in the last decades, there has been less exploration of what this could mean concretely for a political activism that aims to go beyond mere ‘micropolitical’ transformation. To address this lack, this article examines the tensions between binarity and complexity through an engagement with political resistance against genetically modified organisms. This brings to light that the ontology of complexity pursued by some anti-genetically modified organism activists is ultimately grounded in a binarisation of both politics (one is either ‘for’ or ‘against’ genetically modified organisms) and life (which is either ‘natural’ or ‘unnatural’). Whilst problematic, this binarisation also informs the success of anti-genetically modified organism activism. An engagement with the philosophy of Deleuze and Guattari, especially through the notion of the ‘encounter’, brings out this paradox and serves to radicalise the ontology of complexity argued for by anti-genetically modified organism activists in order to open up different avenues for thinking about and ‘doing’ political resistance.