ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the theme of resistances in lifelong learning to consider how they are played out, in what contexts and by whom. We conceptualize resistances as counter-hegemonic practices that operate at the micro-level of everyday experience and attempt either consciously or unconsciously to challenge and subvert hegemonic regimes of truth and privileged discourses and identities. As hegemony works by consent rather than force, a key question running through this chapter is what happens when consent is not given to hegemonic discourses of lifelong learning. However, we also want to account for the complexities of resistances in this chapter. We recognise, for example, that compliances, acceptances and resistances can happen simultaneously and are not clearly delineated in practice. We acknowledge the emotional dimensions of acts of resistance, and the risks and pleasures associated with such acts. Foucault argues that resistance is carried out at a local level, with a constant shifting in the exercise of power, and with pleasure coming through the challenges of resistance:
The pleasure that comes of exercising a power that questions, monitors, watches, spies, searches out, palpitates, brings to light; and on the other hand, the pleasure that kindles at having to evade this power, flee from it, fool it, or travesty it.
