Necropolitics and the bodies that do not matter in pandemic times

Núñez-Parra, Lorena; López-Radrigán, Constanza; Mazzucchelli, Nicole; Pérez, Carolina

doi:10.1016/j.alter.2020.12.004

Cited by 5 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 4 publications

(3 reference statements)

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“…Necropolitical theory describes the life in suspension between the world of humans and objects is the economic law of our times; ‘They are merely a kind of hollowed‐out entity, walking vaults concealed by a multitude of organs, empty yet menacing forms in which we seek to bury the fantasies of an age terrified of itself and of its own excess’ (Mbembe, 2019, p. 101). The management of biopolitics and necropolitics is evident in how certain bodies are killed for production of wealth for others than themselves, aligned with the motives of capital accumulation (Núnez‐Parra et al, 2021). Certainly, a near million‐dollar investment in the survival of this patient was long overdue, but it was not until the patient was already dead that the perfusion of their organs, through the use of ECMO, that a return on investment could be identified.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nursing in deathworlds: Necropolitics of the life, dying and death of an unhoused person in the United States healthcare industrial complex

2023

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This paper begins with the lived accounts of emergency and critical care medical interventions in which an unhoused person is brought to the emergency department in cardiac arrest. The case is a dramatised representation of the extent to which biopolitical forces via reduction to bare life through biopolitical and necropolitical operations are prominent influences in nursing and medical care. This paper draws on the scholarship of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben, and Achille Mbembe to offer a theoretical analysis of the power dynamics that influence the health care and death care of patients who are caught in the auspices of a neoliberal capitalist healthcare apparatus. This paper offers analysis of the overt displays of biopower over those individuals cast aside as generally unworthy of access to healthcare in a postcolonial capitalist system, in addition to the ways in which humans are reduced to ‘bare life’ in their dying days. We analyse this case study through Agamben's description of thanatopolitics, a ‘regime of death’, and the technologies that accompany the dying process, particularly in that of the homo sacer. Additionally, this paper illustrates the ways in which necropolitics and biopower are integral to understanding how the most advanced and expensive medical interventions make visible the political values of the healthcare system and how nurses and healthcare functions in these deathworlds. The purpose of this paper is to develop a greater understanding of biopolitical and necropolitical operations in acute and critical care environments, and to offer guidance to nurses in these spaces as they work to uphold ethical duties in a system that increasingly dehumanises.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Nursing in deathworlds: Necropolitics of the life, dying and death of an unhoused person in the United States healthcare industrial complex

2023

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“…When systems are under strain then guidance around healthcare rationalisation, like that associated with the Clinical Frailty Scale in the UK, are used to justify governments' prioritising the treatment of non‐disabled bodies with Covid‐19 over disabled bodies (Núnez‐Parra et al., 2020 ). This observation is supported by Kritfunk's blog (2020) who report on intensive care guidelines in Sweden focussing on treating those with ‘the greatest chance of survival’ thus placing ‘ill and disabled people, regardless of age and other health factors, as collateral damage’.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Affect, dis/ability and the pandemic

Goodley

Lawthom

Liddiard

et al. 2022

Sociology Health & Illness

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The pandemic has heightened anxieties, impacted mental health and threatened to create an overwhelming sense of existential dread. We recognise the material ways in which disabled people have been differentially impacted by Covid-19 and make a case for understanding the affective dimensions of the pandemic. We develop a theoretical approach -cutting across medical sociology and critical disability studies -that understands affect as a social, cultural, relational and psychopolitical phenomenon. We introduce a public engagement project that took place in March and April of 2020 that garnered blogspots from around the world to capture the pandemic's impact on the lives of disabled people.Our data analysis reveals three key affective themes: fragility, anxiety and affirmation. To understand the emotional impacts of Covid-19 upon the lives of disabled people we embed critical analyses of affect in the dual processes of disablism and ableism: the dis/ability complex. We conclude by considering how we might conceive of a post-pandemic recovery that places the health and well-being of disabled people at the centre of proceedings.

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“…Chantel's pairing of work and care, care as work, work as care, and care in crisis, can be thought alongside work from critical disability studies and organising, which has long grappled with the tension between the imperative of care and survival without relying on, or reinvesting in, the necropolitical (Grunawalt, 2021;Núnez-Parra et al, 2021;Mbembe, 2003) structures that are themselves disabling, and that desire the death of disabled people. I'm indebted here to the Brisbane Free University crew and the Disability Justice Network (n.d.) for giving me grounding in critical disability studies, because it was that work that I kept reaching for in thinking through Carr's account of work and crisis.…”

Section: Care Against Necropoliticsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Collective care and climate repair

Osborne

2023

Dialogues in Human Geography

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This engagement with Chantel Carr's article, ‘Repair and care: Locating the work of climate crisis’, considers possible organising structures of care and climate repair, and the ways this labour can work to reproduce or to challenge settler-colonial capitalist states. Drawing on critical disability studies and crip theory, this essay considers alternative imaginaries of mutual aid and care that can inform how we conceive of and organise the work of climate repair without relying on ‘emergency’ and ‘crisis’ to propel us, and while, at all times, centring justice.

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Necropolitics and the bodies that do not matter in pandemic times

Cited by 5 publications

References 4 publications

Nursing in deathworlds: Necropolitics of the life, dying and death of an unhoused person in the United States healthcare industrial complex

Nursing in deathworlds: Necropolitics of the life, dying and death of an unhoused person in the United States healthcare industrial complex

Affect, dis/ability and the pandemic

Collective care and climate repair

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