<b>Malthusian Biopolitics, Ecological Immunity, and the Anthropocene</b> // Biopolítica malthusiana, inmunidad ecológica y el antropoceno

Authors

  • Hannes Bergthaller National Chung-Hsing University

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.37536/ECOZONA.2018.9.1.2287

Keywords:

Anthropocene, biopolitics, immunity, neo-malthusianism // Antropoceno, biopolítica, inmunidad, neo-malthusianismo

Abstract

     This essay argues that Michel Foucault’s original introduction of the concept of biopolitics should be seen as responding to Emmanuel LeRoy Ladurie’s notion of a “Malthusian curse” which during medieval and early modern times kept the French population in check. Biopolitics was, in its original conception, the management of human and nonhuman populations, securing them against famine and disease so as to allow for continuous growth. During the second half of 20th century, however, Neo-Malthusian thinkers pointed out that these strategies for immunizing human life against the vagaries of ecological existence had come to endanger the basic conditions of life precisely to the degree that they had been successful-ushering in the new geological epoch we have lately begun to refer to as the Anthropocene. This paradoxical dynamic can be understood in terms of what Roberto Esposito has described as an “immunitary double-bind”: existing immunitary defenses can no longer be dismantled without causing significant harm to human life, yet failure to dismantle them will increase the risk of incurring even greater harm in the future. Such an account, it is argued, yields a more ambivalent picture than the starkly negative views which continue to dominate biopolitical theory.

 

Resumen

      Este ensayo sostiene que la introducción original de Michel Foucault del concepto de biopolítica debería entenderse como respuesta a la noción de “maldición malthusiana” de LeRoy Ladurie que durante la época medieval y moderna mantuvo bajo control a la población francesa. La biopolítica era, en su concepción original, la gestión de poblaciones humanas y no humanas, protegiendolas frente a la hambruna y la enfermedad, y permitiendo un crecimiento continuo. Durante la segunda mitad del siglo XX, sin embargo, los pensadores neo-malthusianos apuntaron que estas estrategias de inmunización de la vida humana frente a los antojos de la existencia ecológica habían terminado por poner en peligro las condiciones básicas de la vida precisamente hasta el punto de que habían tenido éxito—marcando el inicio de la nueva época geológica que recientemente hemos denominado Antropoceno. Esta dinámica paradójica puede entenderse como lo que Roberto Esposito ha descrito como una “atadura doble inmunitaria”: las defensas inmunitarias existentes no pueden desmantelarse sin causar un daño significativo a la vida humana, pero fracasar en desmantelarlas aumentaría el riesgo de sufrir aún más daño en el futuro. Tal explicación, se argumenta, ofrece un retrato más ambivalente que las vistas claramente negativas que continúan dominando la teoría biopolítica.

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Author Biography

Hannes Bergthaller, National Chung-Hsing University

Hannes Bergthaller is a professor at the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at National Chung-Hsing University in Tai-Chung, Taiwan. He is a founding member and past president of EASLCE, and has published widely on the literature and cultural history of environmentalism, ecocriticism, and social systems theory.

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Published

2018-04-28

Issue

Section

Articles: Population, Ecology and the Malthusian Imagination