Rethinking biopolitics today: A critical inquiry

Abstract

This thesis is an inquiry on the subject matter of biopolitics and should be seen as an attempt for mapping out the theoretical continent that has been opened up by Michel Foucault. Throughout these pages, I have focused on the question of in what directions the said concept has been utilized as a theoretical perspective in explaining our present, the contemporary social and political world. This thesis concentrates on three issues corresponding to the chapters in the respective order. First, I have strived to give an appropriate answer to the question of what the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics implies. To this end, in the second chapter, I have given a detailed account of Foucault’s usage of the said concept. After that, I have taken up the question of how biopolitics has been employed as an analytical standpoint in explaining the operationality of contemporary capitalism, and to this end I have discussed two prominent approaches: First, I have interrogated the viability of arguing for a linkage between the liberal governmentality and biopolitics and, second, given an account of Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s reworking on the notion of biopolitics. Lastly, in the fourth chapter, I have focused on the question of how to think the notion of biopolitics in the face of those recent developments that seem to be bringing an intensified degree of political violence and a tendency of rising authoritarianisms by way of introducing Giorgio Agamben’s reading of biopolitics, especially the hidden tie that is posited between biopolitics and the notion of sovereignty in his account. All in all, I believe that this study could serve as a suitable introduction for those who are interested in the theoretical debates around the notion of biopolitics, and it could open up grounds for future discussions.