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Jesus Christ Superstar and State Power

In Jesus Christ Superstar we see the state try to exercise power over Jesus both in life and in death. After his death, Jesus is subjected to the state that is rejecting him, attempting to change and erase his legacy. Legacy left behind after a body dies can be considered a ‘living memory’. A dead body becomes the site of struggle here as the followers of Jesus wrestle with the state over the principles he lived by and also the mandation of his memory. This points towards an alternate way of being in the form of resistance as well, the followers of Christ assimilate into the biopolitical state by avoiding making efforts to replicate Jesus’ efforts or acts of holiness, and instead resist by spreading his word. Christ’s word is used as an alternate way of being, both philosophically while alive and in rebirth.

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Suicide and The State

In “Suicide As a Form of Life”  the concept of biopower is addressed by the author and subject of her writing through a new angle. As opposed to the original concept of biopower that we discussed as being regulated by the government onto its civilians, this piece shows that civilians have rebellious and unconventional ways of taking back their power. By commiting suicide, Garcia describes this as being a form of intimacy with the self and a complex means of achieving personal freedom and peace. As opposed to other forms of death, suicide is seen in this piece as a consious and autonomous decision, this limits the state’s role because of two things: attempting suicide can be mandated as illegal but there are no consequences for succeeding, and the state (try as they will) can never completely and efficiently control what happens inside the home/private sphere. The state attempts to assimilate death by assuming that death can most times be prevented or reversed (resuscitation) ,unless by accident, and therefore can lead to uniform death and burial practices and therefore also forcing people to contribute to society with labor until they have no choice but to perish. Committing suicide gives the dead an alternate way of living through achieving themes that are usually reserved for life such as freedom,happiness and agency. To take one’s own life also actively forces their memory upon others in a way that is unlike natural or accidental death

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Desecration Of The Body After Death

CW// extreme racist violence

Biopower persists even after a person has died. The state’s ultimate power to kill is not the final threshold of its power over the body. There is still further violence that can be inflicted upon a person after they have already been killed. This type violence was common during the trans Atlantic slave trade, particularly in Jamaica (Brown, 2010). 

Conditions were horrific for enslaved Africans in Jamaica during the 18th and early 19th centuries. Many enslaved people died by suicide during this time. For many Africans, dying by suicide was favorable compared to their lives imprisoned and suffering on sugar plantations. Additionally, many Africans believed in some form of reincarnation/resurrection and that they would be returned to their homeland after they died (Brown, 2010). This, along with recent uprisings from enslaved people in Jamaica, created a huge problem for plantation owners. Their source of labor was rapidly disappearing. 

In order to further assert power over them, slave owners would often desecrate the corpses of enslaved Africans who committed suicide or were executed for their role in the uprisings. This was a way of both asserting power over a person’s body even after death, while deterring others from committing suicide or joining the rebellion. This public display of violence against the corpse was intended to assert power over enslaved people in this life, and the next (Brown, 2010). 

White slave owners did everything in their power to not only wage war against enslaved Africans’ bodies, but their spirits/souls as well. They had to instill fear among enslaved Africans and convince them that they would not return to Africa after death, but instead would continue to be tortured for eternity (Brown, 2010). The violence inflicted upon the dead bodies of enslaved Africans is an example of biopower being asserted even after death. This example of gruesome violence even extends past the realm of the physical body and enacts violence upon the spiritual body as well. 

References:

Brown, V. (2010). The reaper’s garden: Death and power in the world of Atlantic slavery. Harvard University Press.

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Biopower, Funeral Rituals and Last Rights

A key aspect of Michel Foucault’s theory of biopower is death and the state’s power to kill. One of the key examples cited when discussing Foucault’s theory is genocide and the ultimate power the state has over the body. However, this power over the body extends even further. The state not only has the power to kill, but also the power to control what happens to the living after a loved one dies. 

In Vincent Brown’s book documenting the Atlantic slave trade in Jamaica, he writes extensively about the cultural practices of enslaved Africans surrounding the dead. Specifically, he stresses the importance of Last Rites and funeral rituals. These Last Rites and other rituals separate the living from the dead and were an important part of the grieving process for enslaved Africans during this time. He discusses at length about how proper care for the dead validates the humanity of the person; something enslaved Africans were stripped of by white plantation owners (2010). 

Proper care for the dead looks very different across cultures, but is regardless of importance to everyone. Many peoples across the globe believe that proper burial rituals are not only an expression of honor and respect for the person, but also ensure the smooth transition of the spirit/breath/soul etc. to the next life. White settlers have notoriously demonized funeral practices of Indigenous peoples and enslaved Africans alike (Brown, 2010). The harm perpetuated by white settlers to Indigenous/African funeral practices is exacerbated by the looting of funerary objects and human remains from grave sites. 

Museums across the nation still hold funerary objects–and even actual people–within their walls. Often, these sacred objects are locked away in boxes, waiting to be cataloged. Although federal law mandates that museums must return Indigenous artifacts to their rightful owners under the guidelines of NAGPRA, many objects still remain without their rightful owners (Atalay, et al. 2017). The removal of these sacred objects from graves prevents many Indigenous people from properly grieving and caring for their ancestors. The destruction of funeral practices is an example of how biopower persists even after a person is dead. 

References: 

Atalay, S., Shannon, J. A., & Swogger, J. (2017). Journeys to complete the work: Stories about repatriations and changing the way we bring Native American Ancestors Home. University of Massachusetts. 

Brown, V. (2010). The reaper’s garden: Death and power in the world of Atlantic slavery. Harvard University Press. 

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Biopower And Technology

Foucault refers to Biopower as a “technology of power for managing humans in large groups.” This is exerted through certain tactics, or what he refers to as “disciplinary institutions (Foucault, 2020). These institutions can look like government surveillance and record keeping, documentation and identification based on your race, sex, age etc. 

These institutions are highlighted in Lisa Stevenson’s book Life Beside Itself: Imagining Care In The Canadian Arctic. As discussed in a previous post, this book documents Stevenson’s fieldwork with Inuit communities in Canada. Stevenson’s book highlights the ways disciplinary institutions are used within Inuit communities by the Canadian government, specifically the tactic of surveillance. Stevenson describes surveillance tactics used in residential schools, particularly regarding suicidal Inuit youths (Stevenson, 2014). This tactic emphasizes the aspect of Biopower that discusses the state’s power to keep people alive. In the context of suicide specifically, surveillance and institutionalization not only remove a person from their home and treat them without their consent, but also force them to stay alive against their will in a very literal sense.

References:

Foucault, M. (2020). The history of Sexuality. Penguin Books.

Stevenson, L. (2014). Life beside itself: Imagining care in the Canadian Arctic. University of California Press.

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Biopower And Public Health

Biopower is state power over people’s bodies (Foucault, 2020). As stated in a previous post, one of the most notorious examples of Biopower is genocide; the state’s ultimate power to kill entire populations of people. Foucault conceptualized his theory of Biopower in the wake of the Holocaust and often connects it to the state’s ultimate power to kill. 

What is perhaps sometimes overlooked about Foucault's theory of Biopower is the fact that the state can not only exert the power to kill but also the power to keep alive. Lisa Stevenson’s book Life Beside Itself: Imagining Care In The Canadian Arctic centers on Inuit communities and the politics of healthcare, death and regulation of bodies. Stevenson spends the first few chapters of the book discussing the tuberculosis epidemic in the mid-20th century and the continued effects it has on Inuit communities. Many Indigenous people were forcibly taken from their homes to be treated for tuberculosis, only to die before reaching the treatment centers. Many Inuit to this day have no way of knowing what became of their family members all those years ago (Stevenson, 2014).

Although the concept of public health has undoubtedly improved living conditions for most people living in North America, the lingering colonial practices associated with public health continue to harm many marginalized populations. The examples given in Stevenson’s book highlight that much of the effort to treat the Inuit people for tuberculosis was partially an attempt to “civilize” them and to shape global understandings of health and illness. Foucault refers to this tactic as “normalization,” i.e. the state’s power to shape an overall narrative or status quo.

References:

Foucault, M. (2020). The history of Sexuality. Penguin Books.

Stevenson, L. (2014). Life beside itself: Imagining care in the Canadian Arctic. University of California Press.

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How does Necropower/Necropolitics work?

Necropower is exercised through state violence and rejection of it’s citizens that reject The State’s sovereignty. As an extension of othering, necropower serves to designate resistance of The State as the enemy. “Is the notion of biopower sufficient to account for the contemporary ways in which the political,under the guise of war, of resistance, or of the fight against terror, makes the murder of the enemy its primary and absolute objective?” (Mbembe, 12). By surveiling and managing death and post-death practices, states ensure discouragement of protest and fear while citizens are alive. This fear that ends up becoming both cultural and generational dissolves what little autonomy people might have because there is the risk of a threat to their status of life. “In other words, one is free to live one's own life only because one is free to die one's own death” (Mbembe, 38).  Status of "proper citizenship" determines if subjects get the right to die under conditions that are not considered to be collateral damage or necessary for progress of The State.

References

Mbembé, J., & Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture 15(1), 11-40.  https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/39984.

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What is Necropower/Necropolitics?

Necropolitics is the counter/sister concept to biopower, instead of being focused on the surveillance and regulation of life, it focuses on death. The term Necropolitics is discussed by George Agambe and Achille Mbembe in our readings, and focuses on life and death in relation to war and other types of conflict. This lens shows how a hierarchy is placed on the value of life based on who is considered to be dispensable. People are punished or controlled even in death by being buried improperly,  fear of state sovereignty being enforced,being dismembered/disfigured post mortem, and being disallowed to die in a natural or dignified way. Necropolitics is warfare on citizen life and spirituality.

Necropolitics focuses on definining who is exempt from the sovereign power of the state and is allowed to maintain autonomy over their state of life. This extends to being victims of mass violence, just like biopower, necropower set out to standardize and regulate the definition and treatment of the "proper citzen". Unfit citizens are then punished, "In such circumstances, the discipline of life and the necessities of hardship (trial by death) are marked by excess. What connects terror, death, and freedom is an ecstatic notion of temporality and politics” (Mbembe, 39). Death in the sense of necropolitics can transcend physical death and tranlate to social and political exile as well.

References

Mbembé, J., & Meintjes, L. (2003). Necropolitics. Public Culture 15(1), 11-40.  https://www.muse.jhu.edu/article/39984.

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Examples of Biopower

~ Government Nursing homes: Controlling the livelihoods of the elderly by isolating them in facilities meant to regulate and manage their food, medicine, and medical care.

~ Food and Drug Administration: Regulation of food, medicine and bio-byproducts. This gives them the ability to restrict and manage what the civilian population consumes and sells.

~Obesity epidemic propaganda: Doctors and government public health management of diet, medicine, and exercise in order to maintain a certain weight and appearance. This is enforced by the BMI chart and nutritionist standards.

~ Residential Schools: Policing the practice and retention of indigenous culture, along with where they lived, what language they spoke and their appearance.

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How Does Biopower Work?

Biopower is ultimately exercised by the State to control an entire population of people effectively (Foucault, 2020). The State is able to exert control over a population of people by exercising power over their physical bodies. In order to exercise this power, the State must designate a subsection of the population as “other.” The State then heavily surveils and disciplines this group in order to standardize them and their bodies. In order for biopower to function, there must always be a group of people to other, meaning the State can never fully succeed in standardizing everyone in a population. 

Biopower is heavily concerned with the concept of public health. Standardizing bodies means everyone conforms to a certain standard of physical well-being. Biopower utilizes a strategy of maximizing the overall health of a population by creating universal standards of medical care, sanitation, and hygiene; sometimes at the expense of the “less desirable" population. One of the most famous examples of biopower is eugenics, a State’s attempt to weed out undesirable bodies by controlling reproduction within those groups. Within this framework, death and illness (at least among proper citizens) are considered failures of the State.

References

Foucault, M. (2020). Society must be defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-76. Penguin Books.

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What Is Biopower?

Biopower is a concept proposed by French philosopher Michel Foucault. Biopower (literally meaning power over life) refers to a type of power exercised by the State over a large group of people by controlling their physical bodies (Foucault, 2020). Usually when we think about the type of power exercised by an authority figure– a parent, government, boss, teacher etc– their authority is limited to our behavior. The things we do and say are rewarded, punished and regulated accordingly by our overseers. Foucault's theory of biopower refers to the power the State exercises not just over our actions or positions in society, but rather over us as biological beings. 

Biopower works by standardizing human bodies and populations. The State conceptualizes what they believe to be the ideal human, and then creates policies to help the population conform to that standard of what it means to be a “proper citizen.” A proper citizen is usually a person who exhibits rationality, follows the laws of the land, adheres to a certain standard of physical/psychological health and does not exhibit any kind of “deviant” behavior (Foucault, 2021). People who conform to the standard of proper citizen are granted the status of full personhood, that is, afforded the full range of allotted rights within a given society. People who deviate from this standard are heavily surveilled, disciplined, and are not afforded the same rights and privileges. This includes children (who do not exhibit the same level of rationality as adults do,) criminals, racial/ethnic minorities, and disabled people.

References

Foucault, M. (2020). Society must be defended: Lectures at the College de France, 1975-76. Penguin Books.

Foucault, M. (2021). The history of Sexuality. Penguin Books.