(Political) Spirituality and Revolt: Examining the 2022 Mahsa Amini Uprising through Foucault’s 1978 Iran Reports

Following the death of Mahsa Amini in custody in 2022, after her arrest for not fully complying with the Islamic Republic’s dress code, a movement known as the “Woman, Life, Freedom” movement emerged that is mainly characterized by its resistance to state control through various means, including unveiling and promoting a discourse of disobedience and self-government. While this discourse marks a radical departure from 1979 regarding Islamic governmentality, echoes of Foucault’s arguments in “Is it Useless to Revolt” are evident. In this paper, I examine the 2022 movement in tandem with this article and through the lens of Foucault’s key notion of revolt against subjugation [assujettissement]. I argue that Foucault’s concept of (political) spirituality is so broad that it encompasses both these divergent political movements, framing them primarily as revolts against governmentality that entail transformative practices of self-government.