Performing Struggle: Parrhesia in Ferguson

'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 ethos 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. Counterconduct 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 e thos of this behavior is represented as an ethics of the self, a form of parrhesia where the rioter risks herself and shows courage to tell the truth, the story of her community.