Toward a Micro-Political Theology

“Have we expected too much of ‘liberation’ in our pursuit of social justice? Has liberation theology fallen captive to the competition for who can speak for the most oppressed? In the most comprehensive engagement between Michel Foucault and liberation theology to date, the brilliant Yin-An Chen builds on Foucault’s micro-politics of resistance to help us rethink ascetic practice not as the renunciation of sexuality, desire, and the body, but a constant process of self-transformation.”


—Marcus Pound, Durham University





“When Liberation Theology gets indecent then the dualism of freedom and resistance comes to the fore. Toward a Micro-Political Theology introduces the reader to a fresh and non-Western reading of Foucault.”


—Michael Hoelzl, University of Manchester





“Chen’s book brings Foucault into conversations with liberation theologies, showing the ways Foucault’s analyses of power relations, sexuality, and subjectification can correct liberation theologies’ blind spots. Toward a Micro-Political Theology opens new avenues for thinking about social change and everyday resistance. I recommend it enthusiastically.”


—Kwok Pui-lan, Candler School of Theology





“In this sharp review and analysis, Yin-An Chen separates the Foucauldian wheat from the faux-liberation tares, showing us what genuine resistance entails and how Foucault helps us imagine it. Full of fine distinctions, and the unsparing critiques that come with them, Toward a Micro-Political Theology first clears the ground of so much detritus piling up in Foucault’s wake and then recovers from the ashes something (self)transformative, a political spirituality.”


—Jonathan Tran, Baylor University





“In this highly insightful book, Yin-An Chen offers a rich micro-political theology that poses hard challenges to extant theologies of liberation. He shows that, to become most effective, liberation theologies should reflect on how subject-selves are constructed via spiritual practice, as a mode of resistance to capitalist accounts of subjectivity. Chen’s call for the development of individual yet simultaneously non-privatized subjectivity, through the dual lenses of resistance and desire, is original and compelling.”


—Susannah Cornwall, University of Exeter