The Politics of Life Itself

Rose, N. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine, Power, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century 2007 Oxford : Princeton University Press xiii + 350 pp . £15.95 ISBN-13 978 0691 12191 8 (pbk) ISBN-10 0 691 12191 5 (hbk) This is a book that requires very little introduction: it is a significant publication in the social studies of biomedicine by one of the discipline's leading practitioners. Nikolas Rose's work will already be familiar to many in the field and if it isn't, then The Politics of Life Itself is a great place to start. Pulled together in one volume are Rose's groundbreaking analyses of contemporary biopolitics, biopower and the medicalisation of the human subject, tied together and developed from earlier incarnations that have previously appeared in print. Rose's overarching thesis in The Politics of Life Itself is that biopolitics has been transformed in the 21st century and that this has happened along five 'pathways': molecularization, optimization, subjectification, somatic expertise and economies of vitality. These transformations, he argues, have resulted in 'an emergent form of life' (Rose, 2007: 7), where '. . . biopolitics has become inextricably intertwined with bioeconomics' (Rose, 2007: 7). In this book Rose describes the vital political issues surrounding biomedical developments in genomics, personalized medicine, neuropsychiatry, and the pharmaceutical industry. The detailed accounts of these developments given by Rose, coupled with his nuanced discussion of the emergent forms of identity and identity politics that they create, provide critical evidence of the changes in 'vital politics' he ascribes to contemporary biopower. For Rose, the advanced liberal economies of the US, UK, and Australasia have produced new forms of control, management and conceptualisation of '. . . the very vital capacities of human beings as living creatures' (2007: 3). Increasingly, he argues, the very biology of the human body is subject to new regimes of hope, expectation, value, measurement and consideration. The Politics of Life Itself is fundamentally Foucauldian in essence, adding some much needed layers missing from Foucault's original argument by opening with the point that there has been a fundamental 'step change' in technological capacity since Foucault's original analysis. The book takes as its reference a quite particular understanding of Foucault's concept of 'biopower'. Rose begins with the point that 'biopower' is at once all encompassing and also too vague. Whilst students of Foucault will be familiar with this problem, Rose takes a slightly different tack and suggests that the main difficulty with Foucault's articulation of biopower is that it is insufficient to explain the real political effects of new biomedical technologies. For Rose, the primary limitation of Foucault's understanding of biopower is that it acts on the body rather than through the body and that this is not an adequate conception of the political issues arising out of the 'new politics of life' in the twenty-first century. Rose's new book contains many useful concepts that might be suitably engaged by social scientists engaged in critical analysis of the new medical technologies emerging with the global bioeconomy. The connections Rose makes between economic transformation and changes in the social practices of biomedicine are well-formulated and his iterations are evocative. 'Biological citizenship', 'genetic responsibility', 'bodily ethics' and 'biosociality' are some of the key concepts that Rose identifies as fundamental to contemporary biopolitical practice. Discussions of how these components impact on everyday life include genomics and race, psychiatry and the self and crime and justice. In each of these areas of application, Rose identifies the economic implications for the deployment of these techniques of knowledge. These initial offerings could be expanded in any number of different directions and provide fertile ground for pushing forward critical thinking in the sociology of biomedicine. Overall, Rose argues that biopower has shifted from a technique for the management of populations (Foucault) to a technique of individualisation within large populations. While some readers might not agree with Rose's take on Foucault, his modernised version of biopower is provocative and leaves room for some interesting questions. At the end of The History of Sexuality, Vol. 1, (1978) for instance, Foucault teasingly hints at the idea that resistance to biopower might be possible, yet is frustratingly ambiguous with the details. Following the Foucauldian theme then, a question that might be asked of Rose is this: what forms of political resistance are possible under the new form of biopower he so carefully unpacks

Biopower · Technocracy · Biomedical Ethics and Regulation