Biopolitical mutations and discourses about normality: foucaultian actualizations in the biotechnological age

The proposal of this paper is to point out contemporary biopolitical mutations induced especially by the increasing usage of (bio)technologies. We can observe a growing movement of patterns of collective articulation, related to risk management and to the production of individual and collective identitiesguided by corporeal models as well. A new biomedical subjectivity is being constituted. New forms of responsibility –mainly genetic – are at stake. In a society where power technology becomes increasingly centered in life management, the normalization of bodies and behaviors seem to be inevitable. However, we can also observe the usage of bodily technologies that subvert the “corporeal consciousness” and demonstrate the complexity of defining, in a rigid way, the borderline between the normal and the pathological.

Biopower; Biopolitics; Biotechnology; Normal; Pathological