Customer Reviews

Bios: Biopolitics and Philosophy (Posthumanities)

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Bios represents Roberto Esposito's introduction to the English speaking world. It is a fresh new take on this concept of biopolitics that his colleague, Giorgio Agamben, has helped make popular. The central concept Esposito presents is "immunity." The idea is that immunization involves introducing the body to a weakened form of an virus in order for the body to produce antibodies. The virus, in this way, becomes incorporated into the body. But immunization taken too far--for example autoimmune disorders--can become deadly. Thus far, Agamben and even Derrida have argued that immunization or biopolitics generally necessarily collapses into this thanatopolitics. Esposito, however, argues that this is not so. Biopolitics, if it is a politics of life, is productive. But only in the first immunity scenario. He holds up as proof the relationship between the mother and the unborn fetus. It seems to me, Esposito's willingness to recognize the positive side of biopolitics is provocative, honest, and refreshing.

The book itself is not as straightforward as its thesis. Esposito is interested in showing how immunity, more than biopolitics itself, runs throughout western thought. He starts with Plato, goes through liberalism, and even discusses Negri and Agamben (although annonymously). Esposito's readings are anything but uninventive. Truly amazing stuff. The highllight I think is his engagement with Foucault himself. His purpose is not to celebrate Foucault as some prophet (as Agamben often does), but rather to point out the deadlock in Foucault's thought--a deadlock that Esposito, predictably, believes immunity can untie.

Another important feature of the book is the geneaology of biopolitics that he gives. It is a geneaology that is missing from Negri, Foucault, and Agamben, and it shows how close biopolitics comes to eugenics theory. But again, his purpose is not to undermine biopolitics per se but to show how the rush to purity results in a deadly auto-immunity.

The overall take on biopolitics however is that it is not a philosophy per se. As he argues in a Critical Inquiry article, biopolitics is a lexicon for speaking about politics. Thus, his readings of the texts are on some level a lexicon-building more than explication.

The ultimate lesson here broadly is that spoken through the language of biopolitics, the temptation for any society is to purify itself from foreign bodies. To seek full immunity. But such an immunity, as Derrida points out, collapses into thanatopolitics and the body itself dies as a result. What Esposito's positive biopolitics would have us do is to become comfortable with contamination. Like Nietzsche, Esposito would have us seek to grow stronger by preserving, rather than obiliterating or expelling, the foreigner. It is a relation that would supposedly benefit the foreigner also. An interesting take, I think.

In the end, I predict Esposito will be a major voice in the biopolitics debate. His other book on community will come out in English soon. I think it is a fortuitous event as the domination of the debate by a single Italian voice has stagnated.