When did biopolitics begin? Actuality and potentiality in historical events

Abstract

The article addresses the ongoing debate about the origins of biopolitics. While Foucault’s analysis of biopolitics approached it as a modern rationality of government, Agamben’s Homo Sacer series presented biopolitics as having a longer provenance, dating back to the antiquity. These polar positions are not mutually exclusive but coexist in these and other theories of biopolitics, which approach its object as both modern and ancient, having its chronological origin in the eighteenth to nineteenth centuries yet also possessing a prehistory of precursors. The article interprets this dual origin in terms of Paolo Virno’s theory of historical temporality, which distinguishes between the chronological past of historical events and their potential past, which accompanies and is negated in them. Coexisting with its own unrealized potential, every historical event remains incomplete and extends itself both backwards and forwards, positing its precursors and prefiguring its future outcomes. While modern in the chronological sense, biopolitics is retrospectively inscribed in a longer historical lineage, its antecedents easily identifiable in the history of political thought. Finally, we apply this approach to Virno’s own account of the history of biopolitics, questioning his identification of past potential with labour-power.

Was Thomas Hobbes the first biopolitical thinker?

“…Indeed, there seems to be an obvious juxtaposition between vague, philosophical problematisations of life and the political programmes that govern life in a tangible manner (including programmes that are at least somewhat substantial and realisable, although they do not quite escape the pages of political programmes). In this sense, we are not far from Prozorov (2022), who has noticed that the historical precursors to biopolitics are often characterised almost singularly with philosophy instead of the more tangible changes in the art of governing depicted by Foucault. I would like to argue that this question establishes the epicentre of the challenge that one faces while attempting to read Hobbes as a thinker whose political thought includes biopolitical elements.…”

“…One of the most recent attempts to conclude the debate regarding the birth of biopolitics comes from Sergei Prozorov (2022), who has argued for a twofold origin. According to him, the phenomenon's chronological emergence is undoubtedly modern and as such is connected to the emergence of the prevailing forms of governing that have been detailed in Foucault's analyses.…”

Biopolítica del Desastre e Intervención social en la ciudad

“…La biopolítica refiere al campo de fuerzas que disputan el control de la vida. Si bien no constituye su génesis conceptual (Prozorov, 2022), en general se reconoce la importancia de Foucault (2003) en su delimitación teórica. En este sentido, el problema de la localización temporal e histórica de la biopolítica supera la idea de su ignición foucaultiana, hallándose algunos resabios en tiempos de la ilustración o del momento colonialista-imperialista europeo (Rodas, 2017).…”

Educación Postdigital: un enfoque desde la pedagogía crítica y mediática para un contexto post-COVID19

“…This research, implemented in three annual phases from 2020 to 2022, constitutes a rich collaborative reflection on the global educational situation in the COVID-19 era, with the participation of more than seventy educators from around the world. The socio-educational reflection included the exploration of the role and significance of biopolitical production, the involvement of its various actors (Hardt & Negri, 2004;Garbarino, 2022;Prozorov, 2022), and its interconnectedness with the digital dimension, defined today according to the concept of Industry 4.0 (García-Loro et al, 2021;Jim'Ain et al, 2020) as well as postdigital relationships (Savin-Baden, 2021;Jandrić & Ford, 2022;Jandrić et al, 2019).…”