A biopolítica em Giorgio Agamben: estado de exceção, poder soberano, vida nua e campo

Abstract

The concept of biopolitics is a rich instrument of analysis and interpretation of the logic of power, the genealogy of government and the meaning of politics in the modern world. The different conceptions of biopolitics each have their specificities. The focus of the present study will be exclusively the biopolitical diagnosis of the present elaborated by Agamben, in which the concept of biopolitics is centered on the politicization of biological life. We seek to show how Agamben's “archeology of biopolitics” can be understood from the analysis of four fundamental notions: sovereign power, bare life, state of exception, and field. We first analyze how Agamben thought the association between the political domain and the animalization of man from the gaps left by the investigations of Arendt and Foucault. In a second moment, we examine the relationship between the sovereign organization of bodies and the state of exception. In the third chapter, we analyze the politicization of natural life and the production of homo sacer, the sacred life. In the fourth chapter, we clarified how Agamben thought of the “field” as a secret “notion” of biopolitics in modernity. Therefore, we seek to show how Agamben's reflection on the nexus between political power and bare life is articulated around these four structuring aspects. We seek to highlight the relevant contribution that Agamben's thinking offers to the critical diagnosis of political rationality in contemporary societies, enhancing our understanding of the new forms of power in late modernity.