Volume : 5, Issue : 7, July - 2016

Theoretical Understanding of Biopower and Biopolitics

Kanika Sharma

Abstract :

<p>&nbsp;Biopolitics as a term had been used in different connotations in various disciplines. It has been utilized in bioethics, medical ethics, political science and life sciences. The radical work is done by Michel Foucault in the conceptualization of biopower and biopolitics. He introduced the concept of biopower explaining the pervasiveness of power into the lives of individuals and populations as collective. The use of biopower and biopolitics interchangeably is the depiction of the diffused ways of power in the life processes. The fuzziness of these terminologies provide a lot of scope for its heuristic usage. In this paper I would like to argue that in contemporary period these two terms are synonymous. The power which is exerted over the combination of body and population through medical institutions and normalization process created to ascertain the deviation occurs.</p>