Geller, P.L.
In Small Plastic Things Forgotten: The Contradictions and Consequences of Biopower
(2025) In The Routledge Handbook of Archaeology and Plastics Edited By Genevieve Godin, Þóra Pétursdóttir, Estelle Praet, John Schofield, Routledge, pp. 152-166.
Abstract
This chapter explores the contradictions raised by and consequences of small plastic things forgotten that were born from scientific innovation, entrepreneurial incentive, and concern for public health. Here, I consider a few in depth (e.g. condom, surgical mask). To frame my discussion, I draw on ideas about biopower. I am less interested in thinking about a disciplinary anatomo-politics of the human body and more concerned with regulatory techniques that impact species bodies, to paraphrase Michel Foucault. Biopowered plastic things evoke contradictory responses – compliance and resistance – especially in times of public health crises. Lost in all of the political vacillating, however, is a discussion of deep-time consequences. That is, despite their intended disposability and beneficence, the mobility, degradation, and toxicity of biopowered plastic hyperobjects, a concept gifted by Timothy Morton, will exert long-term control over humans, non-humans, and ecosystems. For this reason, they require us to expand what exactly the bio in biopower encompasses. They also attest to biocultural entanglements, which will result in unanticipated outcomes. Plastics relates information about plasticity, of species and the planet. For Homo sapiens, whether adaptability (a new biological and ontological normal), a compromised condition (a pathological reaction), or both, only future archaeology will tell.
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