Biopolitics in the Time of Coronavirus

Abstract

In a recent blog post, Joshua Clover rightly notices the swift emergence of a new panoply of "genres of the quarantine." 1 It should not come as a surprise that one of them centers on Michel Foucault's notion of biopolitics, asking whether or not it is still appropriate to describe the situation that we are currently experiencing. Neither should it come as a surprise that, in virtually all of the contributions that make use of the concept of biopolitics to address the current coronavirus pandemic, the same bunch of rather vague ideas are mentioned over and over again, while other-no doubt more interesting-Foucauldian insights tend to be ignored. In what follows, I discuss two of these insights, and I conclude with some methodological remarks on the issue of what it may mean to "respond" to the current "crisis."

The “living dead” within “death‐worlds”: Gender crisis and covid‐19 in India

“…However, the lockdown countered his utopia. It represented a reality steeped in "radical inequality, nationalism, and capitalist exploitation (that found) ways to reproduce and strengthen themselves within the pandemic zones" (Lorenzini, 2020). In India, the pandemic crisis dispensed a perfect occasion for the right wing Indian state to impose dictatorship on the population getting rid of all democratic obstacles under the pretext of "health," and governing the population as pure "biomass."…”

“…However, the lockdown countered his utopia. It represented a reality steeped in “radical inequality, nationalism, and capitalist exploitation (that found) ways to reproduce and strengthen themselves within the pandemic zones” (Lorenzini, 2020). In India, the pandemic crisis dispensed a perfect occasion for the right wing Indian state to impose dictatorship on the population getting rid of all democratic obstacles under the pretext of “health,” and governing the population as pure “biomass.” Prior to the pandemic, caste, class, and religion‐based political discourse borne out of “state racism” (racism within the society based on racial purity and hierarchical categories) had systematically differentiated and oppressed subalterns of the society to establish the order of power.…”

Lest We Forget: Politics of Multiculturalism in Canada Revisited during COVID-19

“…Interrogating this administration of bodies and its process of 'governing and being governed'an art of governing -has attracted critical scholars. Recently several scholars offer an illuminating perspective on the conception of the ongoing management of the COVID-19 pandemic (Horton, 2020;Kakoliris, 2020;Larsen, 2020;Lorenzini, 2020;Presiado, 2020;Van den Berge, 2020). During the pandemic, the administration of bodies, especially foreign and/or racialized bodies, became symbolized as administering a threat/danger to the legitimate community of 'right' citizens/bodies and was contested within and across national borders, constructing another global pandemic, racism.…”

“…In his lecture of 'Society Must Be Defended', Foucault (2003) argues that racism is 'a way of introducing a break into the domain of life taken over by power: the break between what must live and what must die' (p. 254). Lorenzini (2020) notes that 'the differential exposure of human beings to health and social risks is, according to Foucault, a salient feature of biological governmentality. Racism, in all of its forms, is the "condition of acceptability" of such a differential exposure of lives in a society in which power is mainly exercised', thus accurately asserting that 'biopolitics is always a politics of differential vulnerability' (italics in original).…”

Conserving Inequality : Subjugating black labour and hoarding property in South Africa’s private nature reserves

“…Following, the differential exposure to vulnerabilities as a result of rhino poaching is likely to be distributed along pre-existing racialized divisions of labour in conservation. This is because biopolitical power creates a hierarchy in 'the human order', often along racial lines (Lorenzini, 2021).…”