The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century

Abstract

The biological existence of human beings has become political in novel ways. The object, target and stake of this new &s;vital&s; politics are human life itself. The contemporary state does not &s;nationalize&s; the corporeality of its subjects into a body politic on which it works en masse, in relation to the body politics of other states competing in similar terms. Biopolitics addresses human existence at the molecular level: it is waged about molecules, amongst molecules, and where the molecules themselves are at stake. Human beings in contemporary Western culture are increasingly coming to understand themselves in somatic terms – corporeality has become of the most important sites for ethical judgements and techniques. Biopolitics was inextricably bound up with the rise of the life sciences, the human sciences, clinical medicine. It has given birth to techniques, technologies, experts and apparatuses for the care and administration of the life of each and all, from town planning to health services.