Abstract
‘The enigma of revolts.’ You can almost hear the sigh at the end of this sentence. Foucault is making a statement here, published under the title ‘Useless to Revolt’, on that ‘impulse by which a single individual, a group, a minority, or an entire people says, “I will no longer obey”’. In this short piece, I question the two sides of the enigma—how to label the revolt—is the act of rioting, such as what we witnessed in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014 ‘proper resistance’—and, how to understand the ēthos of the rioter. The label of counter-conduct, I argue clarifies the enigma as it allows us, challenges us even, to see the event as political. Counter-conduct provides a new framework for reading spontaneous and improvised forms of political expression. The rioter can then be seen as political and rational, as demonstrating ethical behavior. The ēthos of this behavior is represented as an ethics of the self, a form of parrhēsia where the rioter risks herself and shows courage to tell the truth, the story of her community.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Badiou, Alain. 2012. The rebirth of history: Times of riots and uprisings. London: Verso.
Roberts, Dan. 2014. Ferguson crisis: Obama sends Attorney General as Governor lifts curfew, The Guardian 19 August. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/18/obama-attorney-general-eric-holder-ferguson?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
Douzinas, Costas. 2013. Philosophy and resistance in the crisis. London: Polity.
Foucault, Michel. 2001. In Fearless speech, ed. Joseph Pearson. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e).
Foucault, Michel. 2002a. Useless to revolt, in Power: Volume 3: Essential works of Foucault 1954-1984. James Faubion (ed.), Robert Hurley (trans). London: Penguin.
Foucault, Michel. 2002b. Confronting governments: Human rights, in Power: Volume 3: Essential works of Foucault 1954-1984, James Faubion (ed), Robert Hurley (trans). London: Penguin.
Foucault, Michel. 2011.The Courage of truth. Frederic Gros (ed.), Graham Burchell (trans). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
Fox, Jonathan. 2003. Acts of service: Spontaneity, commitment, tradition in the nonscripted theatre. New York: Tusitala Publishing.
Lowery, Wesley, Carol D. Leonnig and Mark Berman. 2014. Even before Michael Brown’s slaying in Ferguson, racial questions hung over police, The Washington Post 13 August. http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/even-before-teen-michael-browns-slaying-in-mo-racial-questions-have-hung-over-police/2014/08/13/78b3c5c6-2307-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html. Accessed 14 Aug 2014.
McGreal, Chris, and Rory Carroll. 2014. Second fatal St Louis area shooting stokes tensions in Ferguson, The Guardian 20 August. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/19/police-officer-shooting-st-louis-dead-knife?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2. Accessed 20 Aug 2014.
R v Blackshaw [2011] EWCA Crim 2312.
Stephens II, Robert. 2014. In defense of the Ferguson riots, Jacobin 14 August. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2014/08/in-defense-of-the-ferguson-riots/. Accessed 14 Aug 2014.
Tuckman, Jo. 2014. Mexico: protests at admission that 43 missing students were massacred, The Guardian 9 November. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/nov/09/mexico-demonstration-43-students-confirmed-massacred?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2. Accessed 10 Nov 2014.
Zizek, Slavoj. 2011. Shoplifters of the world unite, London Review of Books, 19 August. http://www.lrb.co.uk/2011/08/19/slavoj-zizek/shoplifters-of-the-world-unite. Accessed 28 Mar 2014.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Sokhi-Bulley, B. Performing Struggle: Parrhēsia in Ferguson. Law Critique 26, 7–10 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-015-9152-1
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10978-015-9152-1