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The generalised bio-political border? Re-conceptualising the limits of sovereign power

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 October 2009

NICK VAUGHAN-WILLIAMS
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Abstract

This article is a response to calls from a number of theorists in International Relations and related disciplines for the need to develop alternative ways of thinking ‘the border’ in contemporary political life. These calls stem from an apparent tension between the increasing complexity of the nature and location of bordering practices on the one hand and yet the relative simplicity with which borders often continue to be treated on the other. One of the intellectual challenges, however, is that many of the resources in political thought to which we might turn for new border vocabularies already rely on unproblematised conceptions of what and where borders are. It is argued that some promise can be found in the work of Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben, whose diagnosis of the operation of sovereign power in terms of the production of bare life offers significant, yet largely untapped, implications for analysing borders and the politics of space across a global bio-political terrain.

Type
Research Article
Information
Review of International Studies , Volume 35 , Issue 4 , October 2009 , pp. 729 - 749
Copyright
Copyright © British International Studies Association 2009

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References

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17 D. Campbell, ‘Writing Security: United States Foreign Policy and the Politics of Identity’ (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1998).

18 Y. Lapid, ‘Introduction: Identities, Borders, Orders: Nudging International Relations Theory in a New Direction’, in M. Albert et al (eds), Identities, Borders, Orders, p. 2.

19 N. Parker, ‘A Theoretical Introduction: Spaces, Centres, and Margins’, in N. Parker (ed.), The Geopolitics of Europe's Identity: Centres, Boundaries, and Margins (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), pp. 3–24.

20 C. Rumford, ‘Introduction: Theorising Borders’, European Journal of Social Theory, 9:2 (2006), pp. 155–69.

21 G. Ó Tuathail and S. Dalby (eds), Rethinking Geopolitics (London: Routledge, 1996), p. 29.

22 M. J. Shapiro, ‘Violent Cartographies: Mapping Cultures of War’ (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1997).

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24 R. B. J. Walker, ‘Inside/outside’, p. 159.

25 A. Closs Stephens and N. Vaughan-Williams (eds), Terrorism and the Politics of Response (London and New York: Routledge, 2008); E. Dauphinee and C. Masters (eds), Living, Dying, Surviving: the Logics of Biopower and the War on Terror (New York: Palgrave, 2007); J. Edkins, V. Pin-Fat, and M. J Shapiro, (eds), Sovereign Lives: Power in Global Politics (New York: Routledge, 2004).

26 A. Neal, ‘Exceptionalism and the Politics of Counter-Terrorism: Liberty, Security, and the War on Terrorism’ (London and New York: Routledge, 2009); M. Neocleous, ‘The Problem with Normality: Taking Exception to “Permanent Emergency”’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31 (2006), pp. 191–293; S. Prozorov, ‘X/Xs: Towards a General Theory of the Exception’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 30 (2005), pp. 81–112.

27 J. Butler, ‘Precarious Life: the Powers of Mourning and Violence’ (London and New York: Verso, 2004); W. Connolly, ‘The Complexity of Sovereignty’, in J. Edkins et al, Sovereign Lives, pp. 23–41.

28 At the time of writing the Homo Sacer series translated into English includes: G. Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life’ (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998); ‘Remnants of Auschwitz: the Witness and the Archive’ (New York: Zone Books, 1999); and ‘State of Exception’, (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2005).

29 Ibid., p. 28.

30 Ibid., p. 28.

31 Ibid., p. 28.

32 See G. Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 1 and G. Agamben, ‘Form-of-Life’, in P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 151.

33 By now there is growing literature on the relationship between Agamben and Foucault, which, especially in the Politics and IR literature, tends to privilege the importance of the latter over the former. See, for example, A. Neal, ‘Cutting Off the King's Head: Foucault's Society Must Be Defended and the Problem of Sovereignty’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 29 (2004),pp. 373–98; A. Neal, ‘Foucault in Guantanano: Towards an Archaeology of the Exception’, Security Dialogue, 39:1 (2006), pp. 31–46; M. Ojakangas, ‘Impossible Dialogue on Bio-Power: Agamben and Foucault’, Foucault Studies, 2 (May 2005), pp. 5–28.

34 (Quoted in) Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 3.

35 Ibid., p. 4.

36 Ibid., p. 9.

37 Ibid., p. 6 (emphasis in original).

38 Ibid., p. 6.

39 J. Edkins, ‘Trauma and the Memory of Politics’(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), p. 180.

40 J-L Nancy, ‘Abandoned Being’, trans. B. Holmes, in J-L Nancy (ed.), The Birth to Presence (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993), pp. 36–47.

41 C. Schmitt, ‘Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty’, trans. G. Schwab, 3rd Edition, (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2005).

42 W. Benjamin, ‘On the Concept of History’, in H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938–1940 (Cambridge, MA and London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2003) [1940], pp. 389–400.

43 G. Agamben, ‘Means Without Ends: Notes on Politics’, trans. V. Binetti and C. Casarino (Minnesota: University of Minneapolis Press, 2000), p. 139.

44 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 9 (emphasis added).

45 G. Agamben, ‘Interview with Giorgio Agamben – Life, A Work of Art Without an Author: the State of Exception, the Administration of Disorder, and Private Life’, German Law Review, 5:5 (2004) p. 612.

46 See A. N. Whitehead, ‘Science and the Modern World: the Lowell Lectures 1925’ (London: Free Association Books, 1985) and S. Kwinter, ‘Architectures of Time: Toward a Theory of the Event in Modernist Culture’ (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2001).

47 G. Agamben, ‘Interview with Giorgio Agamben’, p. 612.

48 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 37.

49 Agamben, Ibid, p. 37.

50 Ibid., p. 612.

51 G. Agamben, ‘Interview with Giorgio Agamben’, p. 612.

52 The term ‘bare life’ is Daniel Heller-Roazen's translation of ‘nuda vita’, contained in the sub-title of Agamben's original Homo Sacer: Il Potere Sovrano e la Nuda Vita. However, not all scholars agree with this translation. For example, Vincenzo Binetti and Cesare Casarino translate ‘nuda vita’ as ‘naked life’, see ‘Translators’ Notes' in G. Agamben, ‘Means Without End’, p. 143.

53 See, for example, J. Edkins and V. Pin-Fat, ‘Through the Wire’. Edkins and Pin-Fat note that the concept of bare life is contentious and open to different readings. However, they set-up and use the terms ‘bare or naked life’ and ‘zoē’ interchangeably (pp. 6–7). For other examples of this tendency see: J. Butler, ‘Precarious Life’, p. 67; J. Edkins, ‘Missing Persons: Manhattan, September 2001’ in E. Dauphinee and C. Masters (eds), Living, Dying, Surviving; C. Lausten and B. Diken, ‘Zones of Indistinction: Security, Terror, and Bare Life’, Space and Culture, 5:3 (2002), pp. 290–307; A. Norris, ‘Giorgio Agamben and the Politics of the Living Dead’ in A. Norris (ed.), Politics, Metaphysics, and Death: Essays on Giorgio Agamben's Homo Sacer (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2005); and M. Ojakangas ‘Impossible Dialogue on Bio-Power: Agamben and Foucault’, Foucault Studies, 2 (May 2005), p. 7.

54 G. Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 109 (Emphasis added).

55 J. Butler, ‘Precarious Life’, p. 67.

56 I must acknowledge my thanks to Alex Murray for this formulation.

57 Agamben, ‘State of Exception’, pp. 87–8.

58 Response of the United States of America, dated 21 October 2005, to the inquiry of the Special Rapporteurs of the UN dated 8 August 2005 pertaining to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, p. 52.

59 United Nations Economic and Social Council Commission on Human Rights, ‘Situation of Detainees in Guantanamo Bay’, 15 February 2006, E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 24.

60 Ibid., pp. 24–5.

61 {http://web.amnesty.org/pages/guantanamobay-index-eng}

62 In June 2004 the Supreme Court held that US courts have jurisdiction to consider challenges to the legality of detention of foreign nationals in Guantanamo. However, no habeas corpus petition has been decided on the merits by a US Federal Court. E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 15.

63 Ibid., p. 3 (Emphasis added).

64 Ibid., p. 12.

65 E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 13.

66 Ibid., p. 12.

67 Ibid., p. 12.

68 The UN report on the situation of detainees in Guantanamo points out that the US government relies upon the deliberate cultivation of ambiguity in order to flout the Geneva Conventions. E/CN.4/2006/120, p. 23.

69 Butler, ‘Precarious Life’, p. 98.

70 Ibid., p. 74.

71 Ibid., p. 98.

72 G. Agamben, ‘Means Without End’, p. 138.

73 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 111.

74 Butler, ‘Precarious Life’, p. 68.

75 Ibid., p. 68.

76 Ibid., p. 68.

77 W. Connolly, ‘The Complexity of Sovereignty’, in Edkins et al, Sovereign Lives.

78 Ibid., p. 28.

79 Ibid., p. 29.

80 Ibid., p. 29.

81 Ibid., p. 29.

82 For examples of other attempted critiques of Agamben's work along these lines see A. Neal, ‘Cutting Off the King's Head’ and A. Neal, ‘Foucault in Guantanamo’.

83 The notable exception here is the work of Political Geographer Claudio Minca. See C. Minca, ‘Agamben's Geographies of Modernity’, Political Geography, 26:1 (2007), pp. 78–97; C. Minca, ‘Giorgio Agamben and the New Biopolitical Nomos’, Geografiska Annaler, 88B:4 (2006), pp. 387–403; and C. Minca, ‘The Return of the Camp’, Progress in Human Geography, 29 (2005), pp. 405–12.

84 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 187.

85 C. Schmitt, ‘Political Theology: Four Chapters on the Concept of Sovereignty’, trans. G. Schwab, 3rd Edition (Chicago and London: the University of Chicago Press, 2005).

86 Ibid, p. 63.

87 W. Benjamin, ‘Critique of Violence’, in M. Bullock and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings Volume One 1913–1926 (Cambridge, MA and London: the Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2004), pp. 236–52.

88 W. Benjamin, ‘On the Concept of History’, in H. Eiland and M. Jennings (eds), Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938–1940 (Cambridge, MA and London: The Bellknap Press of Harvard University Press), p. 392.

89 Agamben, ‘State of Exception’, p. 58.

90 The Nazi state proclaimed a state of exception in 1933 but this was never repealed.

91 Agamben, ‘State of Exception’, p. 29.

92 (Quoted in) Agamben, ‘The State of Exception’, p. 19.

93 Ibid., p. 2.

94 Ibid., p. 2.

95 Ibid., p. 2.

96 Ibid., p. 3.

97 I am indebted to one of the anonymous reviewers for this formulation and their critical commentary on Agamben more generally.

98 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 4, p. 9; Agamben, ‘Means Without End’, p. 39; Agamben, ‘State of Exception’, pp. 2–3.

99 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 6, p. 7, p. 8, p. 19, p. 28, p. 83; Agamben, ‘Means Without End’, p. 37; Agamben, ‘State of Exception’, p. 3, pp. 6–7.

100 Ibid., p. 87.

101 D. Bigo, ‘The Ban the Pan and the Exception’, p. 5.

102 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, pp. 18–9.

103 C. Schmitt, ‘The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum’, trans. G. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press, 2003).

104 See, for example, M. Salter, ‘The Global Visa Regime and the Political Technologies of the International Self: Borders, Bodies, Biopolitics’, Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 31:2 (2006), pp. 167–89.

105 N. Vaughan-Williams, ‘Virtual Border (In)Security’, paper presented at the Annual Convention of the International Studies Association, New York, February, 2009. See also F. Debrix, ‘Banning Space: The Nomos of Exception and Virtual Territoriality’, paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Association of Geographers, Las Vegas, March 2009.

106 Agamben, Means Without End, p. 37.

107 Ibid., p. 40.

108 Ibid., p. 41.

109 Ibid., pp. 40–1.

110 Ibid., p. 39.

111 Ibid., p. 37.

112 Ibid., p. 40.

113 Ibid., pp. 171–2.

114 Ibid., p. 45.

115 Ibid., p. 174.

116 Ibid., p. 39.

117 Minca, ‘Giorgio Agamben and the New Biopolitical Nomos’, p. 388.

118 Ibid., p. 388.

119 E. Weizman, ‘On Extraterritoriality’, in G. Agamben et al (eds), Arxipèlag D'Excepcions: Sobiranies de l'extraterritorialitat (Barcelona: Centre de Cultura Contemporània de Barcelona: 2007), p. 13.

120 Balibar, ‘The Borders of Europe’ (1998), p. 220.

121 BBC News Report, Menezes death a ‘state execution’, 19 September 2005, {http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4261136.stm}

122 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 29.

123 For further elaboration of my argument on the shooting of Menezes in this context see N. Vaughan-Williams, ‘The Shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes: New Border Politics?’ Alternatives: Global, Local, Political, 32:2 (June 2007), pp. 177–95.

124 Account given by BBC news website, {http://bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5075952.stm} accessed on 14 June 2006.

125 According to police shooting guidelines officers can shoot ‘to stop an imminent threat to life’. However, firearms officers must identify themselves and give oral warnings of their intent to shoot. Shots are only to be fired in the ‘most serious and exceptional circumstances’. See {http://bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5042724.stm.}

126 Account given by BBC news website, {http://bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/5075952.stm} accessed on 14 June 2006.

127 Agamben, ‘Homo Sacer’, p. 187 (Emphasis added).

128 P. Virno and M. Hardt (eds), Radical Thought in Italy: A Potential Politics (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996), p. 7 (Emphasis added).