Biopolitics

Biopolitics, as defined by Michel Foucault, is what makes life and its mechanisms enter the explicit calculations of government. As with other notions in the philosopher's work, biopolitics evokes a methodological turn to the archaeological or genealogical inquiry which permeated his entire work. This aspect would be groundbreaking not only in terms of approach but also in terms of substantive studies he carried out in such topics as medicine, psychiatry, childhood, and sexuality throughout the 1970s and 1980s. In one way or another biopolitics has inspired innumerous research pieces across the human and social sciences and has permeated a wide range of concerns and debates in contemporary thought, summarized here as regimes of government of life; identity, biosociality and biocitizenship; and vital and micro-biopolitics