Claire Blencowe, Biopolitical authority, objectivity and the groundwork of modern citizenship
Journal of Political Power
Volume 6, Issue 1, 2013
Special Issue: Special Issue on Authority
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/2158379X.2013.774968
Abstract
Authority is a powerful concept for coming to terms with the diversity of power. This article reframes the concept of ‘authority’ and articulates its continued relevance in a context of radical contingency and biopolitics. It argues that authority is essentially objectivist. Biopolitics is conceived as a historical process of constituting biological life and economic forces as objectivity. The paper addresses the question of whether biological-type relations destroy or foster capacities for politics. Arguing against Arendt’s diagnosis of the fate of authority in modernity, the article maintains that biological knowledges and economism create new groundworks of politics, citizenship and authority. This suggests that politics is instigated not simply through breaking given aesthetic orders (dissensus), but also through aesthetic productions of objectivity.
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