Biopolitical bordering: Enacting populations as intelligible objects of government

Abstract

Since Foucault introduced the notion of biopolitics, it has been fiercely debated—usually in highly generalized terms—how to interpret and use this concept. This article argues that these discussions need to be situated, as biopolitics have features that do not travel from one site to the next. This becomes apparent if we attend to an aspect of biopolitics that has only received scant attention so far: the knowledge practices required to constitute populations as intelligible objects of government. To illustrate this point, the article focuses on processes of biopolitical bordering: the delineation of the target population that is to be known via statistical practices. Drawing on the example of Estonia I show that methodological decisions involved in this work have important biopolitical implications as they affect the size and composition of the population, thus shaping the design of programmes of government aiming at its regulation.

Entangled in the technology-driven borderscape: Border crossers rendered to their digital self

“…This digital practice of bordering (Mezzadra and Neilson, 2013) identifies the border crosser only as the datafied migrant (Ferraris, 2020). Consequently, because populations ‘do not exist as intelligible objects of government independently of the practises mobilised to know them’ (Scheel 2020: 5), the data processing practices make the datafied migrant the only vehicle to govern the flesh and bones border crossers. The border crossers have lost the control of their bodies and are fully exposed to the action of the State.…”

From ‘if‐then’ to ‘what if?’ Rethinking healthcare algorithmics with posthuman speculative ethics

“…In classical Foucauldian understanding, biopower emerges with the shift from sovereign power towards the power over life exercised at the level of population and positions human as species (Foucault, 2007(Foucault, , 2009(Foucault, , 2010. This shift was aided by data collection and management techniques that included tools of measurement and statistical analysis (Desrosières, 1998;Hacking, 1990Hacking, , 2015Scheel, 2020). Biopolitics supplemented disciplinary power as the shaping of the population with scientific and technological tools.…”

Wissen in Zahlen?

“…Oder es geht um die Frage, wie durch Meinungsumfragen überhaupt erst so etwas wie eine öffentliche Meinung (mit-)kreiert wird (Osborne und Rose 1999) oder wie Statistiken durch das Zusammenarbeiten unterschiedlicher Akteur*innen aus Wissenschaft, Politik, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft ›feste Dinge‹ produzieren und selbst zu einem ›festen Ding‹ werden konnten (Desrosières 1991;. Auch wird erörtert, wie Praktiken der statistischen Quantifizierung mit biopolitischen Grenzziehungen zusammenhängen (Scheel 2020).…”