Multispecies Biopolitics: Docile and killable Animals

animais dóceis e matáveis

Abstract

Based on concepts proposed by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, such as biopolitics, discipline, sovereignty and naked life, we held a discussion on contemporary on existing conflicts of interest in human-animal relations, and bet on biopolitics as one of its keys for reading. The hypothesis is that biopolitical references can enrich the discussion about human-animal relations, animal ethics and bioethics. From an exploratory bibliographic review, we raised several works that point out that, on the one hand, biopolitics is not a government exclusive of human life, and extends, rather, to a whole series of living beings: from laboratory mice to dairy cows; on the other hand, if animals are immersed in the paradigm of life enhancement, of biopolitics, their bodies and lives are also exposed to sovereign power. Therefore, human-animal relations are constitued by production, administration and discipline, but also naked lifes, sovereignty and deaths without murder. Animals float, at least in some relationships, between docile land killable lives.