Michel Foucault: life and humanity as productions of biopolitics

Abstract

In this article, I initiate from the notion of “subject sovereignty” that Foucault analyzes in a 1971 interview to reflect the production, by Roman law, of humanist discourse and its effects today. From “subject sovereignty, I problematize the humanist discourse that guides biopolitics, particularly about the management of life and the notion of humanity to, in the end, reflect the lives hidden by the humanist discourse and secularly silenced, raped, and murdered by political rationality that produces and reinforces gender, racial and social classes violence. Therefore, I analyze texts by Audre Lorde, Silvia Federici, Sueli Carneiro, and Paul B. Preciado.