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Power, subtraction and social transformation: Canetti and Foucault on the notion of resistance

Resistance is often understood as a practice that stands against change. The main characteristics of resistance are consequently identified in refusal and rejection. Even when it is acknowledged that change is in fact imposed change – so that resistance is actually resistance against imposition – the implicit premise is that resistance is centred upon inertia vis-à-vis some active force. In this way, resistance is framed as a practice essentially based on negation, or as the negative term in a dialectic of power. The aim of this paper is to propose a different conception of resistance which reveals its crucial links with creation and change. Resistance can be located within a network of resonating concepts for social theory which somehow sidestep classical sociological theories in that they draw on neither the analytic nor the critical tradition in social thought. Whereas the analytic tradition treats resistance as a residual, often suspect, category, the critical tradition accepts it, but only as an incomplete pre-revolutionary step, as the negative phase that exists before more robust forms of counterpower come into play. Inspiration for a new conception of resistance as transformation arises from a point of view in social thought such as the one developed by Elias Canetti. The paper builds on Canetti's theory to recognize resistance's independent value. Understanding resistance as a multidimensional, multiscale and pervasive phenomenon also suggests to displace the centrality of the strictly political dimension so that resistance is regarded as a far more general and encompassing category of human life through a series of social locations. A comparison between Foucault and Canetti reveals a new theoretical venue for a notion of resistance as an act that invokes the commonality of humans.