After two years of global pandemic, it is no surprise that
immunization is now at the center of our experience. From the
medicalization of politics to the disciplining of individuals, from
lockdowns to mass vaccination programs, contemporary societies seem to
be firmly embedded in a syndrome of immunity.
To understand the ambivalent effects of this development, it is
necessary to go back to its modern genesis, when the languages of law,
politics, and medicine began to merge into the biopolitical regime we
have been living under for some time. This regime places a high
priority on immunization and security: no security is more important
than health security. The Covid-19 pandemic has taken the dynamic of
immunization to a new level: for the first time in history, we see
societies seeking to achieve generalized immunity in their entire
populations through vaccination. This allows us to glimpse the
possibility of a “common immunity” that strengthens the relation
between community and immunity. The dramatic tensions we have
experienced in recent years between security and freedom, norm and
exception, power and existence, all refer to the complex relationship
between community and immunity, the decisive features of which are
reconstructed in this book.
Building on the prescient argument originally developed two decades
ago in _Immunitas_, Roberto Esposito demonstrates in this new book
how the pandemic and our responses to it have brought into sharp
relief the fundamental biopolitical conditions of our contemporary
societies.
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Biopolitics in the Age of the Pandemic
Produktdetaljer
ISBN
9781509555666
Publisert
2023
Utgave
1. utgave
Utgiver
Vendor
Polity
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Digital bok
Forfatter