178 RüdigerKunow
particularlyitssexualities,withtheoverallaimofarrivingata"political
technology of the body" (Discipline and Punish26).^24 In this way,
norms addressing the biology of human life form an integral part of the
powerstructuresofmodernsocieties.Thefocusinmuchofthisworkon
the resistance to the claims of power by means of sexual practices past
and present, even while central to Foucault's agenda, lies outside the
purview of the present argument which is not concerned with particular
areasofsexualbehavior.
Seekingtounderstandtheassortmentoftechniquesofnormalization
working on human bodies as figures of intervention, and seeking to
simultaneously emphasize the political import of these normalizations,
Foucault spoke of "biopolitics"—an expression which has in the
meantimebecomealooselyunderstoodhouseholdterminmanyareasof
the Humanities and in all sorts of contexts.^25 In Foucault's
understanding,biopoliticsmarks"theentryofphenomenapeculiartothe
life of the human species into the order of knowledge and power, into
the sphere of political technique" (HistoryofSexuality141-42). This is
by no means a merely technical question but one that has important
repercussions for the single members of the species, as Athena
Athanasiou,amongothers,hasnoted:"Theerasureofsingularity,orde-
personalization, is a crucial aspect of biopolitics” (Butler and
Athanasiou133;Shusterman62).
While it must remain questionable whether the advent of biopolitics
is as historically new as Foucault seems to assume, the shift to a
sustained administrative attention toward the biology of human beings,
or, in his words, the "bioregulation by the state" (Society250) can
nonetheless be said to bring with it a more perfect and more complete
harnessingofthebiologyofhumanlifetopurposesofthestate.^26 Inthis
(^24) ForarecentstudyofintimacyresourcedinpartbyFoucaultcf.L.Lowe184-
96.
(^25) The debate on Foucauldian biopolitics is too expansive to be reflected here.
On "bio-regulation by the state" cf. Ong, "Introduction" 15; the account
developed here is indebted to arguments presented by Axel Honneth, among
theminhisessay"Foucault'sTheoryofSociety"(1994)andtoTimDean's"The
BiopoliticsofPleasure"(2012).
(^26) John Marks notes: "Biopolitical processes as defined by Foucault have
become part of the fabric of everyday reality in advanced capitalist economies,