Biopolitics, biocapitalism and biosociality: formation and development of the concepts

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the appearance and development of the concepts of biopolitics, biocapitalism, and biosociality. The key provisions of the concepts of biopolitics by M. Foucault, G. Agamben, and A. Negri are highlighted. For M. Foucault, biopolitics is a new technology of power. Biopolitics concentrates on the power over the individual as a living being and the population, whose well-being is seen as a resource and source of state welfare. At the outset, biopolitics focuses on four classes of objects: fertility and mortality; morbidity; cases in which a person loses the ability to work; environmental impacts. G. Agamben points out that the political regime as such is biopolitical because it is the life of the individual toward which the legal action of the state is directed — not the way in which this life is organized. The key figure for G. Agamben is homo sacer, an absolutely unprotected life. A. Negri continues the vector of consideration set by M. Foucault, adding that for biopolitics it is important to maintain the life of the population only in order to exploit their labor potential. The concepts of biocapital and biocapitalism expand the understanding of biopolitics given by M. Foucault and now include, as S. Helmreich points out, not only individuals and the population, but also cells, genomes, and genes. It is also pointed out that economic organizations, which create values, markets, wealth, and profit from biotic material and information, are also undergoing transformation. Changes in these notions, in particular in M. Foucault's biopolitics, are catalyzing a search for new types of identity. In proposing the concept of biosociality, P. Rabinow points out that the new concept, the essence of which is the emergence of a network of new identity terms and loci of limitations, is informed by changes in the very understanding of nature. The further development of these ideas along with the spread of biosocial communities is leading to the emergence of new concepts — e.g. what N. Rose and C. Novas call bio-citizenship.