The question of individual agency lies at the heart of any political and social theory aiming
to analyse the social conditions that shape reality. Drawing mainly on the works of Luce
Irigaray Judith Butler Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze this book endeavours to provide an
account of agency as a mode of life in which social transformation and personal transformation
meet and influence one another. The book describes the shortcomings of associating agency with
resisting social norms or institutions arguing that agency as a way of life is a dynamic of
self-creation inspired by a horizon of well-being. As part of this new account of agency the
book re-evaluates several key concepts thus far under-theorized in poststructural theory.
First it addresses the question of how we might understand well-being within a post-modern
framework. Second it presents a notion of 'desire to be' designating the motivational force
that drives people to act in order to create a differentworld. And finally it addresses the
question of how a life of transformative political practices might constitute a sense of
identity both individual and collective.
