Bio-Politics

Multitud ha de ser un libro no solo ampliamente recomendado para
especialistas en temas de riesgo y terrorismo, sino en cuestiones de bio-política en general. La posición inicial de los autores intenta ser una lectura holística de  comprensión respecto al problema de la modernidad capitalista. Esta nueva fase implica un cambio, el cual puede ser interpretado como amenazante o simplemente una oportunidad para saltar a un estado más democrático en donde los actores y sus subjetividades se combinen. Una de las particularidades que distingue a estos dos pensadores del resto, es la visión del rol de la bio-política como mecanismo de adoctrinamiento orientado a crear comunidad. En ese contexto, la multitud debe ser considerada como un producto residual del capitalismo y de la excesiva movilidad de las fuerzas
productivas. Pero a la vez, la multitud es una fiel expresión que desafía la
propiedad privada. La modernidad, después de todo, crea estados paradojales en constante movimiento.

This article investigates how colonial attitudes towards race operate alongside official multiculturalism in Canada to justify the legally exceptional exclusion of migrant farm workers from Canada’s socio-political framework. The Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program is presented in this article as a relic of Canada’s racist and colonial past, one that continues uninterrupted in the present age of statist multiculturalism. The legal continuation and growth in the use of non-citizens to conduct labour distasteful to Canadian nationals has provided an effective means for the Canadian state to regulate the ongoing flow of non-preferred races on the margins while promoting a pluralist and ethnically diverse political image at home and abroad.

In the face of a labour shortage constructed as a political crisis of considerable urgency, the Canadian state has continued to admit non-immigrants into the country to perform labour deemed unattractive yet necessary for the well-being of Canadian citizens while simultaneously suspending the citizenship and individual rights of those same individual migrant workers. By legislating the restriction of rights and freedoms to a permanently revolving door of temporary non-citizens through the mechanism of a guest worker programme, the Canadian state is participating in the bio-political regulation of foreign nationals.

Radical, ‘eventful’ bodily vulnerability has yet to receive sustained attention in contemporary human geography. As one way of addressing the implications of existential vulnerability, this thesis explores the social geographies of people living with epilepsy. It draws upon multiple-methods research comprising an extensive mixed-methods questionnaire and semi-structured interviews, all conducted with people with epilepsy who are members of the charity, Epilepsy Scotland, the project partner. By paying attention to the (post-)phenomenological experience of ‘seizures’, the thesis argues that a failure to appreciate the complex and often extremely troubling spatialities of epileptic episodes invariably results in sustaining the stigmatisation of epilepsy and the partial views of ‘outsiders’. By exploring changed, changing and changeable relations between self, body, space, time and others, the thesis suggests that spatial behaviours in and across different places shift according to various biographical, social and illness experiences and contexts. More specifically, it contends that certain spaces become risky some or all of the time because of the body that not only threatens personal disorientation but also the very foundations of the social order. While there is a corresponding risk that individuals with epilepsy will confine themselves within the socially (although not materially) contained homeplace, many adopt active and resourceful practices, taking into account immediate time-space and embodied knowledges so as to resist being told what they can do, where and when. Disciplining the ‘epileptic body’ and environment to accommodate the unpredictability of seizures are put forward as a challenging case study for thinking through how the vital vulnerabilities of everyday life are made sense of through the very governmental regimes that they will always escape.

This article explores Andy Warhol's early films as a mechanism of bio-political production: both challenging capitalist logic of production and mobilizing subjectivity as a source of financial value. The article introduces Maurizio Lazarrato's view of Duchamp's readymade as a 'lazy technique'-a strategy of production that links inactivity and the refusal of work with the creation of non-normative forms of life. Drawing on Isabelle Graw's notion of Warhol's Factory as a site of post-Fordist production, and employing Antonio Negri's concept of "social capture"-this article shows how Warhol's early films (Sleep, 1963; the Screen Tests project, 1964-1966) served as means of appropriating the non-normative lifestyle of his employees (Warhol's Superstars). However, I argue that at the same time they also deployed significant strategies of challenging capitalist notions of productivity and efficiency. Warhol rejected traditional aspects of filmmaking, adopted an 'indifferent imposition' towards the films' subjects, and made an extensive use of repetition to produce a prolonged duration, queer visibility and a collective viewing experience. By doing so, I conclude, Warhol's early films functioned as a "lazy technique"-they explored the refusal of work under bio-political production and its inherent link to non-normative forms of life.

Tracing a history of agro-food studies which are mainly originated from the modern nutrition science that was codified in the late 19th century and has led the diet modification as a self­construction down to the present, the reductionist arguments of the structural anthropology established by Claude Levi-Strauss in the 1960s and the critical gender studies since the 1990s, initially, this essay explores the correlation between a theological notion 'embodiment' driven by some trends of contemporary philosophy-e.g. Graham Harman's object-oriented ontology/speculative realism, or Timothy Morton's allegorical these 'ecology without nature', which are gradually unfolding within the anti-Kantianism and/or anti­pragmatism framework becoming widespread today -and Jacques Ranciere 's politics of aestheticization disputing over the artistic experience of the audience. Herewith, in the analysis and interpretation of contemporary artworks concerning food production and/or habits of diet, I use some strategic notions of the gender theory and queer-cultural activism, through the reappraisal on the historical significance of primary feminist art propagations in the late 1960s and 1970s; in particular include Judy Chicago's collaborative installation project The Diner party (1979), Mierle Laderman Ukeles' series of performances including her Manifesto for Maintenance Art (1969) and Martha Rosler's video artwork Semiotics of the Kitchen (1974/ 75). In addition, I impress the "embodiment of object by a 'somatosensory' in his/her body" to try to sublate the antinomy of 'tactile intersubjectivity' and insoluble sense of 'atactilia: insensitivity to tactile sensation', and also an ambiguous term 'haptique' that was coined by Alois Rieg! in his study on the late Roman art industry, then amplified by Gilles Deleuze in his analysis of Francis Bacon's paintings, with the interpretation on a kind of inward agony in which Jean-Luc Nancy has undergone with his experience of a heart transplant, and Shuhei Ohata's audience participation type performance Lumiere (2006 - ) as an artistic example. Beyond the bourgeoisie gastronomy as before and akin to the cultural studies in the UK in the early 1970s, the contemporary radicalize food studies could be specified in the trans-disciplinary field of both theoretical thought and social practice at the radical democratic antagonism, as Michel Foucault's manifestation about … Foucault’s manifestation about ‘bio-politics and the expanded thesis that introduced many logical arguments. In conclusion, it will prospect for an aesthetic association between the ‘week though advocated by Gianni Vattimo and ‘la partage du sensible of Rancière, aiming at the major alteration of food studies and the assumption of coming integrated ‘food-art politics’ as well. View full abstract

Erving Goffman -Giorgio Agamben I. Στόχος και δομή της εργασίας Ο σκοπός της παρούσας εργασίας είναι συγκριτικός. Θα προσπαθήσει να εξετάσει δύο έργα που εντάσσονται στο χώρο της πολιτισμικής κριτικής. Από τη μία το έργο Στίγμα, σημειώσεις για τη διαχείριση της φθαρμένης ταυτότητας (1963) του Erving Goffman και από την άλλη το έργο του Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer, κυρίαρχη εξουσία και γυμνή ζωή (1995) 1 .

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943) was not only a brilliant inventor, but also a great visionary who foresaw the future problems that humanity will face: energy, food, water, pollution, death and birth issues, etc. The essay, based on Nikola Tesla's articles published in various journals (notably ''The problem of increasing human energy'', Century Magazine, 1900 , is a theoretical exploration-a mind journey through multi-layered landscape: from bio politics to medicine; from mythology to biology and beyond....

for the energy and ideas you have contributed to this book. All of the chapters in this book began life as essays published in books or journals. They have all been polished and updated, and in some cases completely rewritten for this volume. Chapter

This article puts forward two main arguments. First, it highlights the relation between different phases of neoliberalism in Morocco together with the specific methods and techniques of urban government that were deployed in efforts to govern the slums and their populations. A period of roll back neoliberalism during the 1980s generated reforms that tried to increase government control over the urban territory to compensate for the negative social outcomes of structural adjustment. The subsequent period of roll out neoliberalism coincided with the attempt to manage and regulate the slum population as such, through new modalities of state intervention. Secondly, while evolutions in neoliberal government reflected a gradual process, this transition in Morocco was accelerated by security concerns following two severe moments of urban violence: the 1981 riots and the 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca. Therefore, Morocco’s recent political transformations cannot be understood in terms provided by the mainstream narrative linking economic liberalization to democratization. Rather, it reflects a profound shift towards intrinsically authoritarian modalities of neoliberal government which are clearly revealed at the urban scale.

This article explores Andy Warhol's early films as a mechanism of bio-political production: both challenging capitalist logic of production and mobilizing subjectivity as a source of financial value. The article introduces Maurizio Lazarrato's view of Duchamp's readymade as a 'lazy technique'-a strategy of production that links inactivity and the refusal of work with the creation of non-normative forms of life. Drawing on Isabelle Graw's notion of Warhol's Factory as a site of post-Fordist production, and employing Antonio Negri's concept of "social capture"-this article shows how Warhol's early films (Sleep, 1963; the Screen Tests project, 1964-1966) served as means of appropriating the non-normative lifestyle of his employees (Warhol's Superstars). However, I argue that at the same time they also deployed significant strategies of challenging capitalist notions of productivity and efficiency. Warhol rejected traditional aspects of filmmaking, adopted an 'indifferent imposition' towards the films' subjects, and made an extensive use of repetition to produce a prolonged duration, queer visibility and a collective viewing experience. By doing so, I conclude, Warhol's early films functioned as a "lazy technique"-they explored the refusal of work under bio-political production and its inherent link to non-normative forms of life.

"Resumen - Abstract

Jean-Luc Nancy recorre el cuerpo como una Summa, como un Corpus, lo sustrae del horizonte bio–teleológico del organismo para entregarlo al horizonte del acontecimiento, lo cual implica dejar de pensar en un cuerpo organizado sobre la base de una finalidad separada de sí mismo.
Nancy desarrolla una filosofía del cuerpo en la cual trastoca la interpretación generalmente aceptada en torno al lugar (subordinado) del cuerpo en la constitución del sujeto moderno. De allí que Nancy insista en que “no tenemos un cuerpo, sino que somos un cuerpo”. Así en el nuevo estatuto ontológico y epistémico del cuerpo no sólo se conforman nuevas formas de subjetividad, sino también una “nueva carne”. Así en las fronteras entre lo natural y lo artificial surge la posibilidad de pensar en un cuerpo fragmentado, en un cuerpo cuyos órganos se hayan emancipado, en lo que Deleuze y Guattari llamaron el Cuerpo Sin Órganos. Como se verá el conocimiento del cuerpo nunca es entero y absoluto, sino modal y fraccionado, y la forma del discurso que mejor comporta tal saber es la de un Corpus, precisamente, una cartografía, un inventario de las zonas del cuerpo que brinda un conjunto de acercamientos, revelando lo que el propio Nancy llamó “indicios del cuerpo”. De este modo lo que interesa en Corpus no es el todo orgánico, sino las partes desprendidas y sus posibles, en cuanto múltiples, relaciones.
Paralelamente se examinará el pensamiento posthumanista, desarrollado por Sloterdijk, sus fuentes filosóficas y sus medios técnicos, para luego  abordar –desde allí el problema de la alteridad,  la reconfiguración de la subjetividad y la ontología del cuerpo tal como es propuesta por Jean–Luc Nancy. De este modo se revisará el  fenómeno de la histeria anti-tecnológica; las metáforas y escatología de la enfermedad, profundizando la vivencia del trasplantado, para terminar discutiendo las consecuencias éticas de esta suerte de ontología del cuerpo que comienza a configurarse, una ontología modal –si se quiere– ya que el cuerpo dice relación más con con posiciones, tensiones, y pesos, que con esencias o sustancias."

This paper draws on the work of Michel Foucault in order to analyze the constellation of political strategies and power at the US/Mexico border wall. These strategies, however, are incredibly diverse and often directly antagonistic of one another. Thus, this paper argues that in order to make sense of the seemingly multiple and contradictory political strategies deployed in the operation of the US/Mexico border wall, we have to understand the coexistence and intertwinement of at least three distinct types of power at work there: the sovereign exclusion of illegal life, the disciplinary detention of surveilled life, and the biopolitical circulation of migratory life. By doing so this paper offers an original contribution to two major areas of study: in Foucault studies this paper expands the existing literature on Foucault by analyzing the crossroads of power particular to the US/Mexico border wall, which has not yet been done, and in border studies this Foucauldian approach offers a unique political analysis that goes beyond the critique of sovereignty and toward an analysis of coexisting strategies of power.

KEYNOTE SPEAKER: Btihaj Ajana (King’s College London) - Languages: English, Portuguese, French, Spanish, Italian.

SECTIONS:

1. BODY AND THE DIGITAL QUANTIFICATION OF THE SELF
2. HISTORY OF THE QUANTIFICATION OF BODIES
3. POLITICS OF QUANTIFIED BODIES
4. BIG DATA & DIGITAL MEDICINE
5. BIO-POLITICAL BODIES
6. AESTHETICS OF QUANTIFIED BODIES

Mitten in der "Aids-Krise", 1987, veröffentlichte die CDU-Politikerin Rita Süssmuth, damalige Bundesministerin für Jugend, Familie und Gesundheit in der BRD, ein Buch mit dem Titel "AIDS. Wege aus der Angst". Damit rekurrierte Süssmuth auf ein zentrales Element des Aids-Diskurses der 1980er Jahre: Immer wieder wurde in populären Medien, aber auch in Umfragen und Analysen, "die Angst" vor der neuen, bis dato unbekannten Krankheit in den Vordergrund gestellt. Die Annahme einer allgemeinen Aids-Angst erscheint zunächst plausibel, wenn man bedenkt, dass die "Diagnose Aids" Anfang der 1980er Jahre den Betroffenen, die häufig bereits kurz nach den ersten Krankheitsanzeichen verstarben, wie ein Todesurteil erscheinen musste. Doch sprach Süssmuth mit ihrem Ratgeber nicht allein Erkrankte und Infizierte an. Vielmehr ging es ihr darum, eine allgemeine Betroffenheit herzustellen. Süssmuths Buch griff den Angst-Diskurs der 1980er Jahre auf, um ihn ihrer Politik der Betroffenheit gegenüber zu stellen.

In this paper, he commentary on Welfare Economics (WE) may seem to be an anti-modernist agenda that wants to negate the scientific endeavour of modern state for the well being of the subjects. This type of responses that negates western enlightenment, are not in the good book of WE-specialist. For example, in two lectures (Abha Maity and Satyajit Ray Memorial lecture), Amartya Sen tried to rescue WE-metanarrative (a derivative of enlightenment project) by anticipating Post-modern non-formal and plural responses. To him, science is always science — not sciences; there is no geographical particularism in the construction of global science. The cultural plurality vanishes by the introduction of gross cultural diffusionism in Sen’s discourse. And anything goes against the print capitalist construct of “nation state” he was ready to rescue it. Thus the free will of enlightenment project is imported from “above” for subjugating the “free will” of below.
In fact, WE is a Post-industrial epistemology that confirms, as a supplier of disciplinary technology, the legitimated existence of simulated state, which is a hyper-reality for the sake of free-flowing market economy, the dominant form of which is death industry!

Discursive governance of pro-population politics refers to norm-based mechanisms of governance that utilise intentionally selected slogans in political discourse for dissemination of ideas to further the interests of political authorities. Such ideas can be disseminated via modern communication technologies enabling governance to build social representations within the public sphere without policy constraints. It is our proposal that the pro-population state discourse in Turkey after 2008 constitutes an example of discursive governance. Our findings show that discursive mechanisms can lead to a change in married couples' reproductive attitude without significant policy alteration and further the debate in view of discursive governance of population politics.

Bio-politics', according to Foucault, concerns natural environment and bodies, which are both 'ungovernable.' Problems regarding radiation risk are typical problems of governability; radiation can contaminate the whole environment and can eventually damage genes and destroy the self-reproductive capacity of biological bodies. Since radiation can be neither seen nor sensed, problems relating to the so-called 'radiation exposure safety level' become political problems concerning the scientific construction of invisible reality and the definition of its meanings for human health. We shed light on the concrete ways bio-politics operates in the nuclear age, running through from Hiroshima, Chernobyl to Fukushima, with an eye to justice as the security of biological bodies.

A chapter from Rational Freedom vol 6 Mediation by Dr Peter Critchley

In the context of debates over postmodernity there is value in. integrating the critical insights of Marx and Weber in relation to capitalist modernity, relating the process of rationalisation to the process of capital accumulation. This is to demonstrate the contemporary relevance of the ideas of Marx and Weber by revealing how organisation in the modern world is based upon relations of power,, control and domination in many forms. These ideas converge with those of Marx, who locates the process of rationalisation in the need for surplus value and the accumulation of capital.

Il presente contributo muove dall'assunzione di uno specifico orientamento filosofico nei confronti di tre dimensioni: ciò che accade nel presente; ciò che è il mondo; ciò che siamo noi. Questa particolare postura consiste in un ἦθος, ethos, che in greco designa un peculiare comportamento caratterizzato da una serie di atteggiamenti; purtroppo, una simile definizione dell'ethos risulta ancora troppo generica, soprattutto in relazione agli oggetti. Per comprendere appieno le caratteristiche di una simile postura, dobbiamo analizzare la formulazione specifica che ne fornisce Michel Foucault, nel momento in cui definisce «l'ontologia dell'attualità»: Cos'è l'attualità? Qual è il campo attuale delle nostre esperienze? Qual è il campo attuale delle esperienze possibili? Non si tratta di un'analitica della verità, ma piuttosto di qualcosa che potremmo definire un'ontologia del presente, un'ontologia della modernità, un'ontologia di noi stessi 1. Il filosofo francese presenta questa formulazione partendo dall'analisi del testo kantiano Was ist Aufklärung?, pubblicato nella Berlinische Monatsschrift nel dicembre del 1784: nel confronto con questo intervento di Kant, Foucault rintraccia il momento sorgivo di un nuovo atteggiamento filosofico che si rivolge al presente come problema specifico del filosofare, dal momento che il filosofo tedesco riflette in tempo reale su che cosa sia il fenomeno dell'Aufklärung. Se la filosofia si assume il compito di comprendere il presente nel mentre del suo darsi, allora i suoi oggetti specifici di riflessione critica diventano un'epoca, un corpo di

[Micromega-Almanacco di filosofia, 8.2020, pp. 129-144]

The paper reflects on the role of philosophy in bio-political matters, i.e. powers, rights and duties concerning (human) life. The case study is a discussion occurred between R. Esposito and P. Flores d'Arcais respectively in favour and against M. Foucault's treatment of bio-political issues. The paper briefly reconstructs the discussion, then presents some new ideas about the kind of public philosophy we ought to adopt nowadays in dealing with questions of life

La presente reflexión se deriva de un proyecto de investigación en el área de la telemedicina y su relación con la responsabilidad social y ética como apoyo a la responsabilidad civil y penal del médico en su ejercicio profesional. Para ello, se recurrió a la revisión de la literatura y a la consulta de expertos de la Fundación Cardiovascular de Colombia. Como resultado, se tiene que ante las leyes netamente definitorias sobre telemedicina; la bioética, la deontología, la responsabilidad social y los principios morales cumplen la labor propia del principio hipocrático de primum non nocere, “no hacer daño”, es decir, de hacer el bien en la sociedad al guiar al médico hacia principios del deber ser. Ante normas dispersas e inespecíficas que regulen la prestación del servicio de telemedicina, la conciencia moral y ética del médico evita la deshumanización de la medicina y la desigualdad en el acceso a los servicios de salud.

Abstract. This reflection is derived from a research project in the area of tele-medicine and its relationship with social responsibility and ethics to support civil and criminal responsibility of doctors in their practice. To do this, we researched scientific literature and interviewed experts from the Cardiovascular Foundation of Colombia. As a result, it can be said that in face of simple laws defining tele-medicine; bioethics, deontology, social responsibility and moral principles comply with the Hippocratic Oath, knowed as of primum non nocere, “above all do no harm”, that is, to do good in society while guiding doctors to principles of what should be. Regarding given scattered and unspecific rules governing the provision of tele-medicine, moral and ethical conscience of the doctors avoids the dehumanization of medicine and inequality in access to health services.

A summary of my forthcoming book. Dwelling on a politics of and in life, it works across multiple locations of mass violence to understand an affirmative bio-politics. The underlying theme is an emphasis on the social as a location for the constitution of life, as against an overwhelmingly bio-logical, a social that is cohered by affect.

In this thesis ethnographical interviews with women in Buenos Aires are analyzed with discourse theory in order to examine how discourses of safe/unsafe and urban poor construct places and bodies. A central element of discourse is argued to be the partially fixed inscription of danger in territories and bodies of the urban poor. Neoliberalism´s impact on urban space has meant a transformation of public space and impacts on constructing reality. This transformation of meaning is connected to the neoliberal transformation of the labor market, once invested with rights and security, now deregulated and precarious. Urban poor are visible in every interviewed woman´s everyday life, but the way of constructing them as subjects varies with level of closeness and identification. The Argentine historic construction of Europeaness, modernity and civilization as opposed to Latin Americaness, backwardness and barbarism can be found in many of the women´s constructions of urban poor. So is the othering of them in relationship to motherhood and citizenship. The constructions of the urban poor are also analyzed with the Foucaultian concept of biopower.

This article considers the biopolitical implications of the recent election of Donald Trump as President. It argues that self-regulation predicts his failure not his success. Mr Trump has provided ample evidence of his unsuitability for office, he has numerous character flaws does not believe in the evidence of his own eyes and lies openly. These defects would normally bar a candidate from office, so why is Mr Trump President? My argument here is that the self-regulating powers of the dominant interpretation have begun to fail in the aftermath of the historical rupture caused by 2007/08 financial crisis an absence of ‘well-being’ leading to ‘self-caring’ and the election of a candidate clearly not up to the task indicating the presence of new interpretations where previous rules of conduct no longer apply. So that the dominant interpretation is failing and/or the institutions through which it imposes itself.

New on our #TRAFOBlog:
“The workshops are seedbeds for degeneration”: Forms of Exposure and Protection of Workers’ Bodies in Vardar Macedonia
by Ivana Hadjievska in our series »Factory Reloaded«
https://trafo.hypotheses.org/30250

Through an analysis of print media from 1918 to 1941, Ivana Hadjievska presents the discourses and imaginaries surrounding the newly-formed working class in the Vardar Macedonia region in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. She discloses how elite discussions of hygiene and health wove around the bodies and lives of factory workers, and fed back into conceptions of national identity.