Biopolitics

The concept of biopolitics is widely used in human geography and cognate fields such as philosophy, cultural studies, political science, history, and sociology. This article tracks the manner in which this concept has been deployed, critiqued, and developed in recent decades in order to flesh out it value and offer some thoughts on its scholarly future. The entry first discusses the writings of social theorist and historian, Michel Foucault, elaborating on his conceptualizations of multiple varieties of power: sovereign, disciplinary, and biopolitical. It then examines how other scholars have contested and reformulated Foucault's work, before exploring the use of the biopolitical framework in geographical research and beyond. The final parts of the entry contain a critical overview of existing debates around this concept and develop some ruminations on its particular value for theorizing key concerns of contemporary times.