Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp as an Example of Biopolitical Framework of Global War on Terror Cover Image

Więzienie w Guantanamo jako przykład biopolitycznego paradygmatu globalnej wojny z terroryzmem
Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp as an Example of Biopolitical Framework of Global War on Terror

Author(s): Magdalena M. Kania
Subject(s): Politics / Political Sciences, Politics, Security and defense
Published by: KSIĘGARNIA AKADEMICKA Sp. z o.o.
Keywords: Biopolitics; Global War on Terror; Guantanamo Bay Detention Camp; Indefinite Detentions; Giorgio Agamben

Summary/Abstract: The aim of this article is to introduce the problem of indefinite detainees of Guantanamo Bay into the framework of biopolitical interpretation of Global War on Terror (GWOT). From the very first days of GWOT, the George W. Bush administration mobilized all available resources to fight with everyone suspected as a potential terrorist in all areas, including legal area. The intentional consequence of this fight was the elimination of political rights for indefinite detainees. Potentially risky individuals were suspected in the context of normal law – what can be perceived as a visible result of sovereign’s decisions and actions – and were transformed into bare lives, figure of homini sacri. Homo sacer means an individual being excluded from the society and social order; it means the situation of being deprived of personal political rights, where the essence of human existence is diminished to physical aspects exclusively. According to Giorgio Agamben and his concept of biopolitics, the camp per se, is the paradigm of modernity. It is the place of permanent production of bare lives, the materialized place of state of exception, the place of law suspension. In the context of post-9/11, Guantanamo detention camp became the pure exemplification of Agamben’s biopolitical camp.

  • Issue Year: 2015
  • Issue No: 2 (05)
  • Page Range: 25-58
  • Page Count: 34
  • Language: Polish
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