Biopower and Physical Violence: Embodied Experiences in Communist Europe

Departing from Michel Foucault, notably from his History of Sexuality, the biopolitical argument that a person's body is a site of control is now well established. Applied to Communist Europe, the Foucauldian biopolitical perspective relativizes the singularity of communist would-be 'totalitarianism' (modern Western states have displayed distinct 'totalitarian' tendencies in the exercise of their rule, too) and shifts the analysis "onto a terrain that is irreducible to traditional terms like democracy, power, and ideology" (Robert Esposito.) Without denying the existing differences between communism and democracy, it greatly reduces the importance of ideology and of the East/West divide. It shifts the accent onto what eventually made a crucial long-term difference between the two systems, i.e. the construction of citizenship. By involving the notions of consent and bodily integrity, we will also bring into play physical violence, especially as applied to women.

Workshop Programme (pdf)