10 RüdigerKunow
Jameson is a useful starting point. Already in the 1980s and thus long
before the possibilities of molecular biology became publicly known,
Jameson noted that "the prodigious new expansion of multinational
capital ends up penetrating and colonizing [the last non-capitalist]
enclaves (Nature and the Unconscious).. ." (Postmodernism49). His
predictionhasbecomeevenmoretothepointtodaywhenawholerange
of "bio"capitalist practices has established itself, from organ trade to
patents on biomaterial such as genes or tissue. I will return to these
practicesandtheirculturalcontextsinthechaptersonlatelife,disability
and the interface of somatics and semantics. At this point, they remind
usthatweneedtounderstandbiologymorecomprehensivelyaswehave
doneforalongtime,namelyasanintegralpartofthesocialrelationsof
capital.^8
Much of the current debate on the articulation of biological
physicality with social and cultural formations has been inspired, if not
held in thrall, by the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics. A later section
of this book will address this issue at more length (see ch. 4, below) so
thatafewintroductoryremarksmightsufficehere.Foucaulthimselfhas
famously defined biopolitics as "the entry of phenomena peculiar to the
life of the human species... into the sphere of political techniques"
(HistoryofSexuality141-42).CloselymodeledonFoucauldiantheories,
concepts of biopolitics have generally highlighted the centrality of
biological concerns within modern forms of governmentality (Clarke et
al.; Sunder Rajan). But in doing so—and closely following Foucault's
conceptual biases—they have tended to conceive of the biological as a
more or less passive object of governance: "Biopower normatively
regulates the life conditions obtaining in the territory" (Massumi,
"Emergency" 30); in doing so, it seems all-encompassing and
unchallenged.
Foucauldian notions of biopolitics have been widely referenced
throughout cultural and biocultural studies, often in mechanistic ways
(^8) Itwouldtakeaseparateargumenttointroducetheideathatsocialrelationsare
determined,interalia,bytheeconomyor,inconventionalMarxistterminology,
by the relations of production. As a small historical footnote, it might be added
that Marx already understood this dimension of biology and made polemic use
of its metaphorical potential, e.g. when he spoke of "the vampire thirst for the
livingbloodoflabor"(Ca pital 367).