"Athena: Philosophical Studies" No. 17, 2022 (editors: Audronė Žukauskaitė, Denis Petrina)

Thematic issue "Transformations of Biopolitics in the Time of Crisis"

The notion of biopolitics, formulated and popularized by M. Foucault and G. Agamben, is conceptually structured around the figure of the sovereign and their power to excercise control over individual bodies or populations. However, emerging health, migration, and climate crises signal the need to modify the concept of biopolitics: the latter is no longer understood as the central form of power but, instead, as a form of interaction among various social groups attempting to eliminate the consequences of the crises. The articles in this issue will explore different critical situations. First, social, political, and anthropological implications of the COVID-19 pandemic will be analyzed. The pandemic has revealed and brought to light already existing structural inequality (discrimination on the basis of race, age, (dis)ability, etc.) as well as has created new forms of "bare life" (e. g., people at higher risk from virus). With the state of exception, the pandemic has suspended the political status quo, which, in its turn, has opeed the possibility to imagine alternative political orders. Second, the migrant crisis and the influenced by it collision between human rights and national security will be explored. Third, the issue will focus on climate crisis that highlihts the exploitative and destructive human relationship with other species: human intervention into natural ecosystems as well as destruction and commercialization of other species, which is associated with regularly emerging pandemics. In the face of these crises, biopolitics should be construed not only as a negative force but also as an inevitable necessity to take control of them (governmentality). It can be stated that the notion of negative biopolitics does not appear to be productive, therefore it is crucial we find positive terms to articulate how these crises should be managed.

Abstract (around 300 words) submission deadline: May 1st, 2022

Article (5000-7000 words) submission deadline: September 1st, 2022

Guidelines for authors: https://athena.lt/journal-policy 

E-mail: baceviciute@gmail.com