The primacy of resistance

Abstract

The concept of resistance has received a renewed academic attention after the cycle of struggles in 2011, ranging from the Arab spring to the Spanish indignados, the Greek aganaktismenoi occupations, the Occupy movement and the UK riots. The legacy of these events has inspired a multitude of resistances against austerity, borders, gender discrimination and so on. In this seminar, I will discuss how to conceptualise resistance today in relation to these contemporary forms of resistance and their creative potential. I will argue that resistance is not primarily about direct confrontation but about changing the conditions in which power operates by creating alternative social relations and alternative ontologies of existence.

Traditional accounts of political resistance often conceptualise it as a sporadic outburst against power. When we think of resistance we immediately wonder: against what? This depicts resistance as subordinated, reactive, negative and bound to defeat. Instead, drawing on Michel Foucault’s work, I propose to radically invert this relation between power and resistance. The primacy of resistance intends to highlight the creative character of resistance over its oppositional and reactive stance. The hypothesis is that opposition does not constitute a defining feature of resistance, but its accidental destiny. 

This does not mean that resistance does not imply a moment of opposition. Rather, we need to wonder whether and how to bracket this moment of opposition in order to fully appreciate and foster the creative and transformational dynamics that resistance sets in motion: solidarity, transversal connections, care, organisational creativity, cooperation. If resistance needs to be against something, it is primarily against the against that follows it.