Fourteenth Global Studies Conference

Abstract

The term “biopolitics” is a seminal example of a word with strangely-wrought powers of signification. It has meaning beyond its Greek roots, and consequently functions not only as a label defining the intersection-zone between biological and political issues but also as a catchword for the basic values of liberalism, with reference to a set of ideological underpinnings developed by Michel Foucault in The Birth of Biopolitics, and more recently elaborated by Roberto Esposito’s Bios and B.J. Muller in Security, Risk and the Biometric State, among others. This paper traces the uses of the term “biopolitics” from a lexicographer’s perspective, while evaluating the functions of specific language-choice as operationalization of theory on the world stage. In the face of the global crisis wrought by COVID-19, which has highlighted ways in which real biopolitics can be sufficiently post-humanist to evade state control, is it necessary to revaluate whether we mean what we say?