The government of life

Managing Populations, Health and Scarcity

Datos Bibliográficos

ID2159685
AutoresK Villadsen (0000-0002-9966-942X, Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University, autor de correspondencia), Ayo Wahlberg (0000-0001-6862-5208, University of Copenhagen, autor de correspondencia)
Año2015
Volumen44
Número1
Páginas1-17
Fecha de publicación2015-02-02
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaEconomy and Society (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0308-5147 • E-ISSN: 1469-5766
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/03085147.2014.983831
OpenAlexW2034485315
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas28
Referencias citadas44

The concepts of governmentality and biopolitics were contemporaneous and interlinked in Michel Foucault's initial analyses. These foregrounded how in the eighteenth century the population emerged as a 'natural-cultural reality' resulting from an integration of biological and economic knowledge. Subsequent research on biopolitics and governmentality has tended to separate the concepts, differentiating into distinct research traditions each with different intellectual pathways. We propose to bring these conceptual innovations together to understand contemporary problems of the government of life, that is, of managing, controlling and optimizing a living population. In this domain, the natural/biological continues to intersect with the social/cultural in novel and unexpected ways. Straddling the specter of biopolitics, we examine four dimensions of the concept: vital threats and the resurrection of death power, the interplay of sovereignty, discipline and security, governmentalization through medical normalization, and 'securitization' of life as circulations and open series. The article also introduces this special feature on the government of life in which significant scholars explores issues of population management by drawing upon, debating, and developing the conceptual heritage of Foucault

Biopower · Economics · Environmental ethics · Government (linguistics) · Governmentality · Political science · Politics · Population · Scarcity · Social science · Sociology · Sovereignty · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Medical, Sociocultural, and Biopolitical Studies