Claudio Minca (2007) Agamben’s geographies of modernity. , 26 (1). pp. 78-97 . ISSN 0962-6298
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This paper examines the geographical underpinnings of Giorgio Agamben's theory of sovereign power. Reflecting on Agamben's attempt in developing a unified theory of power, I highlight the eminently spatial nature of two of the key concepts that mark his argument: the structure of the ban and the camp as a paradigm of modern politics. In particular, I analyse how the spatialisation of biopolitics finds in the camp the ideal site for the definition of endless caesurae in the body of the nation, and for the definition of population as a merely spatial concept. I claim, therefore, that the biopolitical state machine activated by the recent war on terror is not only an autopoietic machine, but that it is also at the origin of new geographies of exception that are imposing a new nomos on global politics: a nomos within which decision is produced by a permanent state of exception, and where law exists only through its endless strategic (dis)application.
This is a Draft version This version's date is: 01/2007 This item is peer reviewed
https://repository.royalholloway.ac.uk/items/acf09783-ed46-11f5-6c91-2288f53295a4/1/
Deposited by () on 29-Mar-2010 in Royal Holloway Research Online.Last modified on 06-Jan-2011
(C) 2007 Elsevier, whose permission to mount this version for private study and research is acknowledged. The repository version is the author's final draft.
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