The terrain where discursive dissent takes place is the slow and cross-territorial transformation of societal values. But how is one to understand the manner in which these terrains of dissidence function and engender human agency? To engage with this question the analysis now moves away from considering discourses as overarching monolithic forces that dominate all aspects of our lives. Without denying their power, indeed, by drawing upon it, one must pay attention to the fissures in them, theorise their fragmentation and their thinness. By doing so, discursive terrains of dissent all of a sudden appear where forces of domination previously seemed invincible.

Some theoretical groundwork is necessary to conceptualise the complex linkages between discursive forces and transversal dissent. To begin, one must analyse politics at the level of dailiness, especially at the level of an individual's identity formation. At first sight, such an inquiry seems of little relevance to the more grandiosely perceived domain of global politics. Yet, in an age of globalisation, where space becomes increasingly annihilated by time, the sphere of dailiness always already contains the global within it.