Year: 2025
Type: article
Abstract: This paper revisits Foucault's formulation of the excess of biopower (1976), employed to discuss atomic power, in order to contemplate the news of microplastic circulation in the biosphere. We will examine from a bio and necropolitical perspective the implications of microplastic circulation. Firstly, plastic will be addressed as a paradigmatic material of 20th-century late capitalism, exploring how its decomposition turns into microplastics. We will then show how the extensive and intensive circulation of this material destabilizes the Foucauldian notions of security, milieu, and regulatory power. Finally, the toxicity of this material will be exposed, along with its connection to the phenomenon of endocrine disruption as a form of necropolitics.
DOI: 10.15517/r6ca9z48
Author: Eva Girot
Institution: Universidad de Costa Rica
Language: English
Topic: Foucault, Power, and Ethics
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W4413382181