The process of globalisation and modernisation of the south through "the development project" continues to "invite" resistance to ecological destruction and displacement of rural and forest-based communities. Post-developmentalist critics emphasise the significance of social movements in ushering in a new partnership for social justice at the margins as "alternatives to development". Meanwhile, scholarship on popular education and social movements continues to document and advance the importance of popular education in social movement activism. However, despite the successes of localised popular education efforts/movements in the south, these movements face considerable obstacles. This paper reports on a study that was undertaken to assess the "brakes of domination" on such attempts at constructive resistance. The study has been undertaken as "one research moment" within the context of a longitudinal participatory action research initiative that commenced in 1995. Partners involve a Canadian development NGO, a partner local NGO located in the east coast state of Orissa, India and Kondh Adivasi and Dalit (pejoratively referred to as "untouchables") communities located in over 100 villages in the forested areas of the eastern ghats (hilly range) of Orissa. The emerging local autonomy movement in the area, where there has been a conscious attempt to engage a process of popular education, has made significant progress in terms of the scope of the movement; mobilising government resources; politicising/galvanising and organising a population that is continually struggling against historic/contemporary forms of domination; and in terms of addressing issues pertaining to access/control over forests, land and water. Research participants (members of the local NGO) are of the conviction that "struggle" is not dead and that people will not give in to apathy and hopelessness, despite the overwhelming odds. This study addresses some of these "odds" or the social structural constraints (brakes of domination) that impinge on movement activism for social justice at the margins.