Discussion of "Biopower Today"

Rabinow and Rose, “Biopower Today”

Discussion began with the following questions:

1. Are R&R mobilizing Foucault’s concept of biopower in a productive way?

2. Can we describe R&R’s mobilization of biopower in terms of a genealogical (e.g., Foucaultian) analytic?

3. What is our assessment of their discussion of Agamben and Hardt/Negri?

Discussion then continued as follows. We proved obsessive with the first question.

1. Are R&R mobilizing Foucault’s concept of biopower in a productive way?

Yes, they are trying to diagnose the transformation of a concept of biopower in the midst of its transformation. They are looking at a field in which biopower figures. They are not looking through the lens of biopower to point out, “ah ha, here is biopower.” They are looking at practices of biopower. They are not looking through biopower: they are looking at forms/practices/norms of knowledge (of life), power (over life), and subjectivation (of living beings). The question is (borrowing from Koopman and Matza): is ‘biopower’ here being used as a category that enables R&R to see at all or is ‘biopower’ being used as a concept that makes sense of a field of inquiry such that R&R are tracking the emergence and/or transformation of biopower? Are they ‘applying’ biopower or ‘inquiring into’ biopower?

Ex.: we are studying elephants. Elephants are our objects of inquiry. Certain categories enable us to see elephants at all (e.g., categories of ‘speciation’ or ‘anatomical structure’). These categories enable us to grasp via the production of concepts that make sense of (classify, typify, exemplify) certain features of elephants (e.g., a particular process of speciation or a particular elephant-unique anatomical feature like a prehensile nose (exception: tapers)).

Ex.: we are studying sexuality. Sexuality is our object of inquiry. Certain categories (norms/forms of knowledge and power) enable us to see sexuality at all and get a grip on it as a viable object of study. These categories enable us to produce concepts that make sense of sexuality. One concept that makes sense of sexuality is biopower (in terms of certain regulations of certain sexuality practices).

On behalf of the latter interpretation (Koopman prefers this), they are looking at a field in which biopower figures as a conceptual sense-maker and they are seeing how that field is being transformed. They are looking at biopower in its transformations. They are looking at historical transformations in practices in which biopower helps make sense of those transformations. This enables them to be appropriately cautious insofar as they are being contextualist about it (e.g., race, genomics, and reproduction) in a way that gives their usage of the concept its specificity. They are also grasping the concept in its transformations (“grasp the transformative implications” [215]).

On behalf of the former interpretation (others preferring this), they are holding three aspects of biopower constant in a way that enables them to use this framework as a way of analyzing a field of inquiry at all.

Or perhaps they are doing both. Perhaps they are simultaneously looking at practices of race &c. through the category-lens of biopower and at the same time looking at the way in which biopower as a concept is being transformed in those practices. Is this helpful?

It may not be a productive tension. This may prove problematic because it would involve simultaneously looking through an invariant lens of biopower (and the ‘application’ of the concept to a new field) and also looking for biopower in its transformations. There is, possibly, this tension in the article. Foucault was asking, for example, “How was sexuality transformed, elaborated, and dealt with as a problematization?” R&R are asking, “How was biopower transformed?” Foucault’s was an inquiry into a set of practices. Theirs is an inquiry into a concept insofar as it structures and/or informs practices. The first order object of inquiry here is a philosopher’s concept. For Foucault, biopower emerged out of inquiry. For R&R, biopower figures as a category at the outset of inquiry.

Or it may be a productive tension. Because perhaps it enables R&R to gain sight of a field of inquiry in which biopower is a conceptual sense-maker (even if that particular sense-maker is not featured explicitly in that field by practitioners) and grasp the conceptual transformations of that sense-maker. These transformations enable them to draw attention to differences and specificities. So when they are charting transformations in the concept, what they are actually (trying to be?) looking at are the practices in their specificity.

2. Can we describe R&R’s mobilization of biopower in terms of a genealogical (e.g., Foucaultian) analytic?

Yes, to some extents. No, in other respects.

It is genealogical in that it is concerned with objects in their historicity (e.g., emergence and transformation). It is genealogical in that it is empirical while being critical (e.g., it is contextualist and specific).

Their point (one of them) is that Agamben and Hardt/Negri are not being sufficiently genealogical in their work. We agree.