Open Access“A Zone of Indistinction” – A Critique of Giorgio Agamben’s Con-cept of Biopolitics
Author(s) -
Thomas Lemke
Publication year - 2005
Publication title -
outlines/critical social studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 1904-0210
pISSN - 1399-5510
DOI - 10.7146/ocps.v7i1.2107
Subject(s) - biopower , state of exception , modernity , reading (process) , epistemology , philosophy , state (computer science) , sovereignty , sociology , psychoanalysis , law , politics , linguistics , political science , psychology , algorithm , computer science
This article reconstructs Giorgio Agamben’s concept of biopolitics and discusses his claim that the camp is the “matrix of modernity”. While this thesis is more plausible than many of his critics do admit, his work is still characterised by diverse theoretical problems. My critique will concentrate on the legalistic concept of biopolitics that Agamben endorses and on his formalistic idea of the state. This reading of Agamben leads to a surprising result. By focussing on the repressive dimensions of the state and the sovereign border between life and death, Agamben’s work remains committed to exactly that juridical perspective that he so vividly criticizes.