COVID-19 i genealogije biopolitike: pandemijska istorija sadašnjosti
COVID-19 and the Genealogies of Biopolitics: A Pandemic History of the Present

Summary/Abstract: In this paper we approach the COVID-19 pandemic through thegenealogical analysis of biopolitics. We recognize two key discontinuities in thegenealogy of biopolitics. First, we have the transformation of the “old biologicalregime” and the emergence of the gaze as a technology of power/knowledge.This was essentially the epoch of the birth of biopolitics, and the period whenlife “entered” the sphere of politics. We then note the emergent discontinuity inbiopolitical technologies today, during the pandemic of COVID-19, as we arewitness to the transformations of biopolitical measures on the global scale. We alsorecognize important lessons from the genealogy of biopolitics as a “history of thepresent”. During just one historical epoch, biopolitics emerged as the power overlife. That was the period of the so called “epistemic break” and the emergence oflife as the new dynamic force of productivity, power, trade, cities, urbanization,population, and capitalism. This is how the risk that was once the base of “lifefunction” instability became the central problem of biopolitics. It is the sameconcern of biopolitics today, but in completely novel social settings.

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