Life, Science, and Biopower

Science, Technology, and Human Values 35 (5):711-734 (2010)
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Abstract

This article critically engages with the influential theory of ‘‘molecularized biopower’’ and ‘‘politics of life’’ developed by Paul Rabinow and Nikolas Rose. Molecularization is assumed to signal the end of population-centred biopolitics and the disciplining of subjects as described by Foucault, and the rise of new forms of biosociality and biological citizenship. Drawing on empirical work in Science and Technology Studies, we argue that this account is limited by a focus on novelty and assumptions about the transformative power of the genetic life sciences. We suggest that biopower consists of a more complex cluster of relationships between the molecular and the population. The biological existence of different human beings is politicized through different complementary and competing discourses around medical therapies, choices at the beginning and end of life, public health, environment, migration and border controls, implying a multiple rather than a singular politics of life.

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Richard Tutton
Lancaster University

References found in this work

Empire.Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri - 2000 - Harvard University Press.
Empire.Michael Hardt & Antonio Negri - 2000 - Science and Society 67 (3):361-364.
Sorting Things out: Classification and Its Consequences.Geoffrey C. Bowker & Susan Leigh Star - 2001 - Journal of the History of Biology 34 (1):212-214.

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