Reconceptualizing Resistance: Residuals of the State and Democratic Radical Pluralism

Arguing that resistance to the state is too narrow a conceptualization of apolitical project that challenges neoliberalism, we posit that there are latent, residualapparatuses of the state which can be activated as part of a systematic progressive politics.We examine Massachusetts’ “Dover amendment”, a legal framework which governs grouphome siting throughout the state. Dover offers a powerful tool with which to resist aneoliberal socio-spatial agenda, though it has been underutilized toward enabling analternative landscape. We analyze how and why Dover has often remained latent as a toolfor socio-spatial resistance, and consider a provocative case in Framingham, Massachusettsthat suggests how residual state apparatuses may be leveraged in support of an explicitlyresistive, progressive agenda