poststructuralism offers controversial accounts which compete with the conventional

explanations of our place in the world. In this study, the researchers assume that by opening
these controversial accounts, such as the multiple and underlying motives of resistance by
the coastal residents, would compete to the conventional explanations of the resistance
and thus, offer a varied and diverse understanding of why the resistance occurred in the
first place.
For poststructuralists, the subject is presupposed to be dislocated and repositioned. This
rejects the notion that a subject is deterministic and thus suggests that the subject can be
dislocated or repositioned. In relation to the aforementioned, the subject is to lose its
status as sovereign power and source of knowledge (Williams, 2002:24).
poststructuralists reject the idea of universality and static totality, the very notion of power
that is universal and can be manipulated is disputable. This notion is imperative in understanding
Foucaults idea of power in his work, governmentality.

Governmentality is one of the concepts in the post-traditions concerning state relations.

The concept has been extensively studied for the past 20 years, expanding on many areas
of study from the social and organizational sciences, humanities and dealing with a very
diverse range of empirical domains (Walters, 2012: 1).
Governmentality, according to Foucault, (1997:28) is the will not be governed like that, by
that, in the name of those principles, with such and such an objective in mind and by means of
such procedures, not like that, not for that, not by them. It is the way that an individual conducts
peoples conduct thus serves as an analytical perspective for relations of power (Foucault, 2007:
504). Foucaults governmentality is thus the rationality that is immanent to the micro-powers
(2007:506).

Walters (2012: 3-4) summarized the tenets that Foucault adopts when he uses
governmentality:

1. Governmentality is heading for a project that examines the exercise of power in

terms of the conduct of conducts (Foucault, 2000: 341)
2. Governmentality for Foucault will be closely associated with the idea of a
genealogy of the modern state (Foucault, 2007:452)
3. Foucault discusses governmentality as though it were synonymous with the
conduct of a liberal approach to governance (Foucault, 2007: 108-110).

The latter conception of Power by Foucault (1998: 93) are as follows:

1. Power is everywhere not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from
everywhere.
2. Power is not something that is acquired, seized or shared, something that one holds
onto or allows to slip away: Power is exercised from innumerable points in the interplay
of nonegalitarian and mobile relations.
3. Power comes from below; that is, there is no binary and all-encompassing opposition
between rulers and ruled at the root of power relation, serving as a general matrix.

Freedom, as referred to in the third tenet of governmentality- conduct of a liberal approach to

governance (Walters, 2012:12)- manifests that an individual has the power to exercise his/her
ability to conduct his own self and/or conduct others.
Resistance is the act of opposing power (Death, 2010:2). This act of opposing
power is designated by Foucault in his past literary work as resistance, refusal or
revolt (Foucault, 2007:266).
Counter-conduct is the struggle against the processes implemented for conducting
others (Foucault, 2007: 268). It is an approach that focuses on the mentalities of resistance
that also seeks to show the mutual constitution of resistance and power, dissent and government.
(Death, 2010: 240). Foucaults counter-conducts, is an art of not being governed quite so much