The Biopolitical Imperative

Rethinking the camp: On spatial technologies of power and resistance

“…At a time when Europe is confronted with the emergence of a new archipelago of camps resulting from the growing presence of irregular migrants, this article intends to reflect on these spatial formations in relation to the mainstream literature on camps in human geography and in the social sciences in general. Despite camps having been studied for several decades, the last 20 years or so have witnessed the emergence and the consolidation of a field tentatively identified as 'camp studies', where the contribution of political geographers has been rich and relevant (for an overview, see Minca, 2015aMinca, , 2015b also Katz et al, 2018a). This body of work has been marked by two main stages: the first, coincidental to the war on terror after 9/11 and the associated proliferation of secret detention camps across the globe, was crucially influenced by Giorgio Agamben's (1998) conceptualisations of the camp as 'the nomos' of our time; the second -mainly but not exclusively preoccupied with the multifaceted workings of refugee camps -can be provocatively described as a stream of 'post-Agambenian camp studies', since this body of literature, while showing clear signs of continuity with earlier work on camps, is also characterised by an explicit critique of the Agambenian thanatopolitical reading of the (concentration) camp, often claiming that a different approach is needed to appreciate the complexity of present-day refugee camp spatialities.…”

Italian Studies, Italian Theory and the politics of trans-lation

“…Finally, Italian Theory's transatlantic traffic has provided a new set of opportunities for the humanities and the social sciences to enter an intense dialogue that has problematized the idea that robust theory and concepts would normally come from specific disciplinary fields, while area studies should largely be informed by empirical work and the related knowledge. As the success of Italian Theory shows, such relationships may be entirely reversed, resulting in a stream of academic work at the intersection between the humanities and the social sciences that is theoretically informed and empirically innovative as it has recently happened in Geography with the incorporation of biopolitical analyses inspired by Agamben, Esposito, and Hardt and Negri (for a review, see Minca, 2015).…”

“…Italian Studies, again, have become a strategic academic site for the selection, contextualization, and circulation into English academia of philosophical thought that has importantly impacted the ''disciplines'', including Human Geography. English speaking Geography, in particular, has been widely engaging with this ''body'' of thought, mainly but not exclusively because of the ''Agamben Effect'' and the subsequent ''biopolitical turn'' observed in other fields as well (see Minca, 2015).…”

“…I also suggest that current reflections on the workings of areas studies are key to understanding the present-day reception of Italian political philosophy in other fields, including Human Geography, and in other ''regions'' beyond Italy, the US, and UK humanities and cultural studies-continental Europe as well as some Asian and Latin American universities (Gentili and Stimilli, 2015; on the impact of Italian biopolitical thought in Human Geography, see Minca, 2015).…”

For an analytics of affective life: marginalized youths, social interventions and development affectspheres in Cusco, Peru

“…See discussions in Chapter 4. See also Anderson, 2012;Braidotti, 2013;Campbell and Sitze, 2013;Esposito, 2008Esposito, , 2011Hannah, 2011;Hardt and Negri, 2000Lemke, 2011;Li, 2010;Minca, 2015;Reid, 2010;Rutherford and Rutherford, 2013. the term "biopoliticization" to discuss policy discourses and campaigns (e.g., those related to sustainable development, food and health) that target the biological and social lives of children and youths (Gibson and Dempsey, 2015;Skoglund and Börjesson, 2014; see also Evans, 2010;Wells, 2011). Still others examining humanitarian and development aid interventions critique how NGOs' discursive constructions of trauma, poverty, vulnerability and childhood in the global South work against nuanced understandings of young people's lived experiences of livelihood adversity and their capacities for resilience and endurance of hardship (see, e.g., Marshall, 2014; see also Cheney, 2010a;Sinervo, 2011).…”