Foucault’s Concept of Force: Deleuze’s Derivation of Resistance, Power and Subjectivity

In Foucault’s work, power often appears too totalising and resistance too vacuous. Many cite Foucault’s later turn towards the self’s relation to itself as a more adequate concept of resistance. This reading misses a central Foucaultian concept: force. By following Deleuze’s account of how Foucaultian force grounds the distinction between power and resistance, I argue that both are types of forces, such that resistance is not reactionary to power, but primary to, and hence foundational for, power. Moreover, subjectivity is not principally resistant. Rather, as a capacity of all forces, subjectivity can be implicated in both power and resistance.