biopolitics, biopower Terms coined by
French philosopher Michel Foucault in his
writings on medicine, discipline andsexuality
(see Foucault, 1978 [1976], 2003 [1997],
2008 [2004]), which refer to power over life.
Foucault traces the emergence of this particu-
lar practice to Europe in the seventeenth cen-
tury, where instead of political rule being
primarily over territories (seeterritory) and
only secondarily over the people within them,
it moved to being over individuals and the
populations of which they were part, particu-
larly in terms of their biological and physical
characteristics. Power is exercised over the in-
dividual body and the collective body of the
population. Instead of thesovereign power
totakelife, this new biopower is the power to
make, sustain or remove life. Foucault was
particularly interested in how, as political rule
becomes increasingly medicalized, it is sim-
ultaneously mathematicized, with the develop-
ment of measures and statistical techniques.
Biopower is the tool by which the group of
living beings understood as a population is
measured in order to be governed, which is
in turn closely connected to the political ra-
tionality ofliberalism(seegovernmental-
ity). Under the broad term of biopower,
Foucault examined a range of institutional
practices and knowledges, including public
health, housing campaigns, mechanisms for
control of disease and famine, sexual behav-
iour, work patterns, and the treatment and
organization of social, sexual and physical ab-
normality. His writings on this topic are part
of a wider project understanding rationalities
of government and the birth of the modern
subject, and are interested in how power
produces and shapes individuals as subjects
of knowledge.
Since his death, there have been several
significant extensions of Foucault’s theses.
Although most of his work concentrated on
europe, his lectures onrace (2003) have
proved influential in thinking about colonial
and post-colonial modalities of power and pol-
itical violence, including war (see Stoler,
1995; Agamben, 1998; Mbembe, 2003). Sev-
eral scholars have focused on the bio-political
implications of contemporary biomedical and
genomic research for the intensifying medica-
lization of society (see Rabinow and Rose,
2006b; Rose, 2006b: cf. medical geog-
raphy). As their work shows, developments
in the life sciences now spiral far beyond ques-
tions of health to address species-being, and
this has prompted several scholars to argue
thatsecuritypractices are being driven by
a ‘toxic combination’ of geopolitics and
biopolitics (Dillon, 2007; Dillon and Lobo-
Guerrero, 2008).
An important stream of work on contempor-
ary biopolitics seeks to show how the advance
of particular techniques, notably biometrics,
has profound political and politico-geographical
consequences.Biometrics – literally the meas-
urement of life – takes unique physical or
behavioural traits such as DNA, fingerprints,
iris scans or gait (the manner of walking) in
order to build up a profile of an individual to
enhance the workings of security systems.
Much work has been done to extend these
insights in analyses of the ‘war on terror’ and
its derivatives (see terrorism) (Amoore,
2006; Reid, 2006; Dauphinee and Masters,
2007; Gregory, 2008a). seSuggested reading
Dillon and Lobo-Guerrero (2008); Esposito
(2006); Gregory (2008a); Rabinow and Rose
(2006b).bioprospecting The exploration, collection
and testing of biological materials in search
of genetic, biochemical, morphological or
physiological features that may be of value
for commercial development. In certain senses
it is an extension of age-old practices by which
people have learned to benefit from their bio-
physical (and especially plant) environments.
However, the ‘social and spatial dynamics’
(Parry, 2004) that underlie such activity have
changed so dramatically in the past 30 years
that bioprospecting can today be most usefully
regarded as a significantly new articulation of
that entanglement.
Specifically, three related but distinguish-
able developments have provided new oppor-
tunities for business and science to come
together to detach biological materials and
associated knowledges from their contexts, so
as better to exploit them elsewhere. First, a
series of economic developments has served
to make bioprospecting profitable. With the
emergence ofbiodiversityas an organizing
trope and its framing as a valuable resource
through the rhetoric of ‘green developmental-
ism’, the notion of ‘selling nature to save it’
has become legitimized. Second, a series of
technical developments has served to make
bioprospecting practical. In particular, the
transformation of biology associated with the
emergence of information technologies has
made the manipulation of the genetic code of
organisms the basis of its value. Finally, a ser-
ies of developments in internationalpropertyGregory / The Dictionary of Human Geography 9781405132879_4_B Final Proof page 48 31.3.2009 11:01amBIOPOLITICS, BIOPOWER