Constitution of the Resistant Subject

The two general ingredients in this chapter are the relation between the interconnection of power relationships and the constitution of subjectivity. One way of expressing this is through the construction of a continuum of 'the degree of intensiveness/extensiveness of the power relations constitutive of the subject'. Drawing on the chapters in this volume it is possible to identify at least three aspects of this dimension of power and subjectivity. There is, first, the question of individual organisation. How coherently organised is the individual, in terms of their subjectivity, as a reflexive agent in power relations? How coherently organised is the individual as one who seeks to enrol, translate, interest or oppose others in their projects? Does the subject have sufficient self-cognizance to be able to exercise this agency? Second, at the mid-point, there is the question of social organisation. To what extent is the subject able to draw upon resources of social organisation greater than the self, such as familial networks or an ecology of local community networks? Third, the most extensive point is the question of solidaristic organisation: to what extent can the subject draw upon consciously organised resources of a social movement or collective organisation in the pursuit of their agency? Or, to put the question in another, equally appropriate way, to what extent does power constitute the resources of human agency in terms of self, significant and generalised others?

[Summary taken from chapter]