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.
This chapter focuses on spatiality in representations of the loss of and grief for companion animals. Giorgio Agamben’s theorization of the distinction between political and bare life is used to analyse around 350 condolence cards for bereaved pet owners. It is shown that the visual emplacement of pets in different contexts in the collection of cards underlines that pets are worth grieving, while at the same time a distance is maintained between humans and other animals. In spite of this distancing, it is argued that the cards have the potential to challenge the normative boundary between grievable and ungrievable life.
The purpose of this study was to determine the management of anthelmintic administration and the possibility of drug resistance in laying hens in Blitar and Kediri districts in Indonesia. This study consisted of two stages: first surveying 48 farmers in Blitar and 81 farmers in Kediri to find out how anthelmintic administration management included the frequency of anthelmintic administration for laying hens, types of anthelmintic, the habit of farmers using sustainably the same (> 3 yr) type of anthelmintic, determination of dosage, and use of herbal medicines in controlling worm disease. In the second stage, examine worm eggs at laying hens farms treated with worm medicine at intervals of 2 wk to 4 wk. The results showed that the majority of laying hens provide anthelmintic every 2 mo to 3 mo. In Blitar, the number of farmers who used the same worm medicine in more than 3 yr was 83.33 %. While in Kediri the number reached 97.53 %. The number of farmers who determined anthelmintic doses based on chicken body weight was 95.84 % (Blitar) and 90.12 % (Kediri). The administration of the same type of anthelmintic for more than three consecutive years and the calculation of anthelmintic doses based on the average body weight is thought to have an influence on the occurrence of drug resistance. It is seen that even though chickens were treated with anthelmintic for only 2 wk to 4 wk, worm eggs were found in fecal examination. © Pakistan Academy of Sciences.