Table Of ContentBiopolitical Disaster
Biopolitical Disaster employs a grounded analysis of the production and
lived-experienceofbiopoliticallifeinordertoillustratehowdisasterproduction
and response are intimately interconnected. The book is organized into four
parts, each revealing how socio-environmental consequences of instrumentalist
environmentalities produce disastrous settings and political experiences that
are evident in our contemporary world.
Beginning with “Commodifying crisis,” the volume focuses on the inherent
production of disaster that is bound to the crisis tendency of capitalism. The
second part, “Governmentalities of disaster,” addresses material and dis-
cursive questions of governance, the role of the state, as well as questions of
democracy.Thispartexploresthelinkagebetweenproblematicenvironmental
rationalities and policies. Third, the volume considers how and where the
(de)valuation of life itself takes shape within the theme of “Affected bodies,”
andinvestigatesthecorporealimpactsofdisastrousbiopolitics.Thefinalpart,
“Environmental aesthetics and resistance,” fuses concepts from affect theory,
feminist studies, post-positivism, and contemporary political theory to identify
sites and practices of political resistance to biopower.
Biopolitical Disaster will be of great interest to postgraduates, researchers,
and academic scholars working in Political ecology; Geopolitics; Feminist
critique; Intersectionality; Environmental politics; Science and technology
studies; Disaster studies; Political theory; Indigenous studies; Aesthetics; and
Resistance.
Jennifer L. Lawrence is Postdoctoral Research Associate at The Global
Forum on Urban and Regional Resilience, Virginia Tech, USA.
Sarah Marie Wiebe is Assistant Professor of Environmental Sustainability,
Department of Political Science, University of Hawai’i at Ma-noa.
Interventions
Edited by:
Jenny Edkins
Aberystwyth University
and
Nick Vaughan-Williams
University of Warwick
The series provides a forum for innovative and interdisciplinary work that
engageswith alternative critical, post-structural, feminist, postcolonial, psycho-
analyticandculturalapproachestointernationalrelationsandglobalpolitics.In
ourfirst5yearswehavepublished60volumes.
Weaimtoadvanceunderstandingofthekeyareasinwhichscholarsworking
within broad critical post-structural traditions have chosen to make their
interventions, and to present innovative analyses of important topics. Titles in
the series engage with critical thinkers in philosophy, sociology, politics and
otherdisciplinesandprovidesituatedhistorical,empiricalandtextualstudiesin
international politics.
Forafulllistofavailabletitlespleasevisithttps://www.routledge.com/series/INT
The most recent title in this series are:
East-Asian Marxisms and their Trajectories
Edited by Joyce C.H. Liu and Viren Murthy
The Evolution of Migration Management in the Global North
Christina Oelgemöller
Neo Delhi and the Politics of Postcolonial Urbanism
Rohan Kalyan
The Political Afterlife of Sites of Monumental Destruction
Reconstructing Affect in Mostar and New York
Andrea Connor
Biopolitical Disaster
Edited by Jennifer L. Lawrence and Sarah Marie Wiebe
Biopolitical Disaster
Edited by
Jennifer L. Lawrence and Sarah Marie
Wiebe
Firstpublished2018
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Contents
List of contributors vii
Foreword ix
WARRENMAGNUSSON
Acknowledgements xiv
Introduction: Living with disaster 1
SARAHMARIEWIEBEANDJENNIFERL.LAWRENCE
PARTI
Commodifying crisis 11
1 Manufacturing biopolitical disaster: Instrumental (ir)rationality
and the Deepwater Horizon disaster 15
JENNIFERL.LAWRENCE
2 Disaster biopolitics and the crisis economy 30
KEVINGROVE
3 Lives as half-life: The nuclear condition and biopolitical disaster 47
TIMOTHYW.LUKE
4 Even natural disasters are unlikely to slow us down … 62
ANDYSCERRIANDNADERSOBHANI
PARTII
Governmentalities of disaster 79
5 The governmentality of disaster resilience 81
PETERROGERS
6 Catastrophe and catastrophic thought 97
GARNETKINDERVATER
vi Contents
7 Politics of re-radicalizing the deracinated as invasive species:
Human displacement, environmental disasters of state enclosures,
and the irradicability of biodiversity 113
MARKF.N.FRANKE
PARTIII
Affected bodies 135
8 Emergency life and indigenous resistance: Seeing biopolitical
disaster through the prism of political ecology 139
SARAHMARIEWIEBE
9 Marginally managed: “Letting die” and fighting back in the oil
sands 158
EMILYRAY
10 “Of course they count, but not right now”: Regulating precarity
in Lee Maracle’s Ravensong and Celia’s Song 172
DALLASHUNT
11 Life at all costs: The biopolitics of chemotherapy in
contemporary television and film 188
TEENAGABRIELSON
PARTIV
Environmental aesthetics and resistance 201
12 The great turning 205
CHRISTINEFRYE
13 The underestimated power effects of the discourses and practices
of the food justice movement 207
ÉRICDARIER
14 Interrogating the neoliberal biopolitics of the sustainable
development–resilience nexus 225
JULIANREID
15 The aesthetics of triage: Towards life beyond survival 242
GEOFFREYWHITEHALL
16 End piece: Dealing with disastrous life 257
FRANÇOISDEBRIX
Index 264
Contributors
Éric Darier, Senior Campaigner on Ecological Agriculture, Greenpeace
International, Canada
François Debrix, Director of the Alliance for Social, Political, Ethical, and
Cultural Thought and Professor in the Department of Political Science,
Virginia Tech, USA
MarkF.N.Franke,AssociateProfessorandDirectoroftheCenterforGlobal
Studies in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Huron University Col-
lege, Canada
Christine Fry, Visiting Assistant Professor of Spiritual Practice and Care,
Starr King School for the Ministry, USA
Teena Gabrielson, Associate Professor in the Department of Political Science,
University of Wyoming, USA
Kevin Grove, Assistant Professor of Geography, Florida International Uni-
versity, USA
Dallas Hunt, PhD Candidate, University of British Columbia, Canada.
Garnet Kindervater, Lecturer in the Department of Geography, Dartmouth
University, USA
Jennifer L. Lawrence, Post-Doctoral Research Associate at The Global
Forum on Urban & Regional Resilience, Virginia Tech, USA
Timothy W. Luke, University Distinguished Professor in the Department of
Political Science, Virginia Tech, USA
Warren Magnusson, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, University of
Victoria, Canada
Emily Ray, Assistant Professor and MPA Coordinator in the Department of
Political Science, Sonoma State University, USA
Julian Reid, Professor of International Relations, University of Lapland,
Finland
viii List of contributors
Peter Rogers, Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology, Macquarie
University, Australia
Andy Scerri, Assistant Professorof Political Science, Virginia Tech, USA
Nader Sobhani, Masters of Science candidate in the Environmental Econom-
ics and Climate Change program, London School of Economics and Poli-
tical Science, UK
Geoffrey Whitehall, Professor in the Department of Politics and Coordinator
of the Social and Political Thought Graduate Program, Acadia University,
Canada
Sarah Marie Wiebe, Assistant Professor of Environmental Sustainability,
Department of Political Science, University of Hawai’i at Ma-noa
Foreword
Warren Magnusson
I must have been about 12 when I first realized that the world might end
before I grew up. That led to various juvenile calculations about my chances
of ever becoming an adult. As each year passed I felt relieved, because it
seemed less and less likely that civilization would be wiped out beforeI found
out what it was like to be a grown up.
Ihavebeen agrownupforalongtimenow.Likemost people Iamused to
pushingmyfearsabouttheultimatefateoftheworldtotheside,sothatIcan
focus on day-to-day life. This book is atimely reminderof the dangerof such
evasions. There is not just one threat to our future as humans, nor is the
threat just to us. Other species are also affected, although we are the ones
causing most of the problems and only we can solve them.
When Iwasyoung, theapocalyptic event most of us imaginedwasa World
War III that would involve large-scale nuclear attacks on Europe, North
America, and parts of Asia – attacks that would kill hundreds of millions of
people immediately and perhaps cause a long “nuclear winter” that would
bringhumanitytothevergeofextinction,oratleastdestroycivilizationaswe
knew it, and reduce everyone to a Hobbesian war of each against all.
Although fears about a large-scale nuclear war have faded (perhaps prema-
turely), we are now aware that there are other catastrophic events that could
have similar effects: the spread of uncontrollable diseases, the release of che-
micals that somehow destroy or severely compromise the biosphere, collision
with a huge asteroid, or climate change that is so rapid and widespread that
we simply cannot cope with it. Even if humanity were to survive such an
event, it would not be in a form that wewould recognize; hence all the novels
and films to which Garnet Kindervater alludes about the horrific future that
could result from our current mistakes.
This book tells us much about those mistakes, but its tone is not apoc-
alyptic. As Tim Luke points out in his chapter, fears about an apocalypse are
often mobilized to justify the emergency measures that have become part of
the routine of modern life, and so they help to normalize the practices that
keep us on the edge of biopolitical disaster. Modern governmentality is about
spreading the risks of catastrophe, building resilience into our communities
and ways of doing things, and making civilization so robust that it can
