Review of Humans, Animals and Biopolitics: The More-than-Human Condition, Edited by Kristin Asdal, Tone Druglitrö and Steve Hinchliffe
2017 (English)In: Nordic Journal of Science and Technology Studies, ISSN 1894-4647, Vol. 5, no 1, p. 38-39
Article, book review (Other academic) Published
Abstract [en]
Michel Foucault’s concept of biopolitics captures the way a decentralized form of governing measures and mobilizes life itself through a number of technologies, such as demographics, surveillance and health initiatives, with the aim to prolong and enhance the lives of a population. According to Foucault, this biopolitical form of governing characteristic of modernity implies a detached and technical stance towards individual lives. In short, biopolitics turns individual lives into life as a mass noun. Interestingly, when human life is treated as a resource, human’s self-proclaimed position as the crown of creation is unsettled and humans find themselves part of the same biopolitical nexus as many other animals. The technologies and consequences of the biopolitization of humans and other animals is the subject of the volume Humans, Animals and Biopolitics, edited by Kristin Asdal, Tone Druglitrö and Steve Hinchliffe. It is a book that should be required reading for Foucauldian theorists and human-animal studies scholars alike.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Trondheim: Department for Interdisciplinary Studies of Culture, Norwegian University of Science and Technology , 2017. Vol. 5, no 1, p. 38-39
Keywords [en]
Michel Foucault, anthropocentrism, anthropomorhism, animal rights, animal husbandry, livestock, pets, companion animals, zoonotic diseases, biopower, biopolitics, continental philosophy, Giorgio Agamben, humanity, animality
National Category
Sociology Human Geography Agricultural and Veterinary sciences Animal and Dairy Science Social Psychology
Research subject
Sociology; Social and Economic Geography
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:mdh:diva-45399DOI: 10.5324/njsts.v5i1.2312OAI: oai:DiVA.org:mdh-45399DiVA, id: diva2:1357675
Projects
Intimate Sociality: Practice and Identity in Collective Housing, Human-Animal Relations and Couple DancingIntimitetens sociala former: Närhetspraktik och identitet i kollektivt boende, husdjursrelationer och pardans
Funder
Swedish Research Council, 421-2014-14652019-10-042019-10-042019-10-11Bibliographically approved