Biopolitics from Below
Title
Biopolitics from Below
Subtitle
Crisis, Conjuncture, Rupture
Price
€ 43,95 excl. VAT
ISBN
9789633868164
Format
Paperback
Number of pages
180
Language
English
Publication date
Dimensions
13.5 x 21 cm
Imprint
Table of Contents
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Spectral Worldmaking—a Foreword
Preface
Acknowledgements
Conjuncture, Crisis, and Biopolitics from Below
India in 1971: Crisis, Conjuncture, and the Entry of People in Biopolitics
Passive Revolution
The Link between Crisis and Conjuncture
The Theme of Conjuncture
The Theme of Crisis
The Gray World of Biopolitics from Below
Contingencies Shape Themes of Biopolitics
Gray Histories of Biopolitics from Below
Fractured Geography of the City and Biopolitics from Below
Logistical Labor, Migrant Workers, and the Physicality of Life
Strategic Dimension of Biopolitics from Below
The Argument So Far
Covid-19, Multiple Crises, and the Biopolitical Response
Practical Ethics: Solidarity, Care, Protection, and Responsibility
A New Kind of Public Power
Conclusion
Notes
Index

Ranabir Samaddar

Biopolitics from Below

Crisis, Conjuncture, Rupture

The current social turmoil enveloping the world has produced knee jerk reactions and a plethora of policy declarations. At the same time, the scenario is marked with response of those with low socioeconomic status to the worldwide chaos and precarious living conditions. In this context, how do we make sense of what is being described variously as a breakdown of democracy, its exhaustion, and the new challenges in the form of an alternative politics of life or a phenomenon that we may term as “biopolitics from below”?

The theme of the book is crisis, conjuncture, and rupture. It relates to the question of correlation of social and political forces in the emergence of certain events, presents certain events as illustrations, and takes a historiographical-analytical route to argue why certain things happen in the way they happen. Usually, crisis is the explanatory factor. This book seeks to go deeper and find out why some crises and not all produce unexpected outcomes. Or, as this book puts it differently, the essential gradient of a crisis is the correlation of forces at a particular time - and thus the question of conjuncture. The book seeks to open up to new adventures in thought, imagining new openings, and creating exits from the situation we find ourselves in.

Author

Ranabir Samaddar

Ranabir Samaddar is currently the Distinguished Chair in Migration and Forced Migration Studies, Calcutta Research Group, Kolkata, India.