Resistance as Inner Revolt: Consciousness, Body, and the Decolonial Politics of Refusal

Resistance Studies has made critical advances in understanding protest, collective action, repression, and counter-power. Yet the field remains largely oriented toward externalized, visible, and action-centric models of resistance, often grounded in Western political rationality. This paper argues for an essential expansion of the field by foregrounding inner revolt, the transformation of consciousness, embodiment, desire, and imagination as a foundational and politically consequential site of resistance. Drawing from Indian philosophical traditions (Jnana Yoga, Shakti metaphysics, Bhakti-inflected refusal), feminist theory, decolonial thought, and poetic epistemology, this paper argues that systems of domination do not merely govern bodies and territories; they colonize inner life. Colonial, patriarchal, and authoritarian regimes operate by disciplining affect, regulating desire, fragmenting attention, and hollowing spiritual and imaginative capacities. In such contexts, inner transformation is not withdrawal from politics but a subversive act of refusal, one that destabilizes power at its most intimate level. The paper advances five interlinked arguments. First, it demonstrates how dominant resistance frameworks often marginalize subtle, feminine, spiritual, erotic, and affective forms of dissent by treating them as apolitical or secondary. Second, it reframes spiritual and contemplative practices, not as private self-care or religiosity, but as historically embedded technologies of survival and rebellion, particularly within colonized and gendered bodies. Third, it positions the body as a living archive of resistance, where breath, sensation, grief, devotion, and pleasure function as counter-disciplines against regimes of control. Fourth, it argues for poetry and narrative as legitimate forms of resistance knowledge, modes that preserve truth, memory, and dissent when formal political language is surveilled, censored, or co-opted. Finally, it asserts that healing and inner repair are not signs of compliance or depoliticization, but conditions for sustained resistance, especially under prolonged repression. Methodologically, the paper adopts an interdisciplinary and reflexive approach, combining philosophical analysis, feminist critique, and narrative-poetic reflection. Rather than positioning inner revolt as a metaphor, it treats consciousness and embodiment as material political terrains, shaped by power and capable of reconfiguration. This approach contributes to ongoing debates within Resistance Studies on resilience, repression, prefigurative politics, and epistemic justice by offering a Global South–rooted framework that challenges Eurocentric assumptions about what resistance looks like and where it occurs. By re-centering resistance within consciousness, body, and imagination, this paper invites Resistance Studies to recognize plural epistemologies of dissent and to acknowledge that some of the most radical refusals are quiet, interior, and difficult to measure, yet profoundly destabilizing to authoritarian power. In doing so, it argues that resistance does not begin at the barricade or the street alone, but in the moment the inner world refuses to be governed.