RT info:eu-repo/semantics/articles
T1 Malthusian biopolitics, ecological immunity, and the anthropocene
T2 Biopolítica malthusiana, inmunidad ecológica y el antropoceno
A1 Bergthaller, Hannes
K1 Anthropocene
K1 Biopolitics
K1 Immunity
K1 Neo-malthusianism
K1 Antropoceno
K1 Biopolítica
K1 Inmunidad
K1 Neo-malthusianismo
K1 Literatura
K1 Literature
K1 Medio ambiente
K1 Environmental science
AB This essay argues that Michel Foucault’s original introduction of the concept of biopolitics should be seen as responding to Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie’s notion of a “Malthusian curse” which during medieval and early modern times kept the French population in check. Biopolitics was, in its original conception, the management of human and nonhuman populations, securing them against famine and disease so as to allow for continuous growth. During the second half of 20th century, however, Neo-Malthusian thinkers pointed out that these strategies for immunizing human life against the vagaries of ecological existence had come to endanger the basic conditions of life precisely to the degree that they had been successful—ushering in the new geological epoch we have lately begun to refer to as the Anthropocene. This paradoxical dynamic can be understood in terms of what Roberto Esposito has described as an “immunitary double-bind”: existing immunitary defenses can no longer be dismantled without causing significant harm to human life, yet failure to dismantle them will increase the risk of incurring even greater harm in the future. Such an account, it is argued, yields a more ambivalent picture than the starkly negative views which continue to dominate biopolitical theory.
PB Universidad de Alcalá
SN 2171-9594
YR 2018
FD 2018
LK http://hdl.handle.net/10017/33162
UL http://hdl.handle.net/10017/33162
LA eng
DS MINDS@UW
RD 19-abr-2024