The Government of Beans – [book review]
Anthrodendum welcomes guest blogger, V.M. Roberts, a PhD student at York University. He studies industrialization, agriculture, and the experience of machine operation from an interdisciplinary perspe…
Tag: Biopolitics
Fit for Purpose? Prime Minister Johnson’s Two Bodies and the UK Better Health Strategy by Kandida Purnell
Amongst the UK’s current Conservative Government, rhetorically invoking the body politic is common practice. For example, in 2019 Number 10 Special Advisor Dominic Cummings argued that a European…
Problemas bioéticos ¿emergentes o persistentes? expuestos por la pandemia COVID-19
JOSÉ RAMÓN ACOSTA SARIEGO El escenario de una catástrofe anunciada. La pandemia COVID-19 ha mostrado en toda su crudeza las falencias, vulnerabilidades, injusticias y desigualdades que aquejan …
What Type of Governmentality is This? Or, how do we govern unknowns by Robert D. Smith
In Le Temps, a French newspaper, anthropologist Julie Billaud wrote that the governance of COVID-19 represents “a move towards a biopolitical mode of governance that aims to manage…
Brave New Normal World
When politicians begin to speak of a post-corona “new normality”, what does that imply? And why should we be concerned? The spread of the coronavirus and the…
Feeble-mindedness, depression and obesity: a brief history of eugenics and dietary interventions in Australia by Christopher Mayes
In October 2019 the Australian Productivity Commission (APC) released a report stating that mental health cost employers $4.7 billion AUD in absenteeism. The report also highlighted significant gover…
Dark Patterns, or Shades of Grey?
Screen Time app. Credit: Apple Press Kit Auto-playing videos. Bottomless social media newsfeeds. Accentuated “I consent” buttons. The internet may appear as a Choose Your Own Adventure, but…
Marxism is amphetamines, biopolitics is cocaine: Social science theories as drugs.
Okay so hear me out, I have a new bit: Social science theories as drugs. Biopolitics is cocaine. I like it in small doses, and I can see…
Web Roundup: CRISPR Babies and Bioethics by Whitney Arey
In late November, He Jiankui, a scientist in China, announced that he had created the first “CRISPR babies,” meaning that he performed germ-line genome edits on human embryos, which…
Ep. #25: Zombie nouns, meaningful objects, biopolitics in politics, and value trials: This month on TFS
This month Julia (0:59), starts us off with a discussion about zombie nouns – non-nouns that have been turned into nouns – such as sociality, relationality, neoliberalisation, and…
In the Journals, October 2018
Map of Downtown Vancouver, taken from Fast, Danya, and David Cunningham. ““We Don’t Belong There”: New Geographies of Homelessness, Addiction, and Social Control in Vancouver’s Inner City.”…
Material as opposed to what? Three recent ethnographies of welfare, biological labor, and human dignity by Leo Coleman
Catherine Fennell. Last Project Standing: Civics and Sympathy in Post-Welfare Chicago. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2015. Kalinda Vora. Life Support: Biocapital and the New History of O…
Genetics, Race, and the Practice of Science, Part Two
On how human genetics is biopolitical. Earlier this year Jonathan Marks and I sat down at the University of Notre Dame for a conversation about his recent books,…
Genetics, Race, and the Practice of Science, Part One
On how the humanities help us think critically about science. Jonathan Marks and I have a lot in common (despite the fact that I am a Christian feminist…
Conference Report: “Biopolitics and Psychosomatics: Participating Bodies” by Alev Sen
Biopolitics and Psychosomatics: Participating Bodies 8 July 2016, University of Cambridge Conveners: Darin Weinberg, University of Cambridge Monica Greco, Goldsmiths, University of London Robbie Dusch…
1000 Risks and Birth-and-Death in Cape Town by Kathleen McDougall
“I was willing to die,” Terri told me, “I just didn’t want to have another caesarian.” She referred to her vaginal birth after three c-sections (a VBA3C), which…
Disability as Diversity: A New Biopolitics by Michele Friedner
We’re a medical anthropologist and a literary critic, and while our research interests seemingly have little overlap, we found ourselves engaged in a series of conversations about how…
Silo as System: Infrastructural Interventions into the Political Economy of Wheat
Ateya Khorakiwala, Harvard University § This post underscores how the seemingly straightforward and yet iconic American silo evolved into a different kind of storage infrastructure when it encountered…