December 7, 2009
Agamben has called attention to the fact that Michel Foucault,despite introducing the concept of biopolitics in the late 1970s (The History of Sexuality, Volume I) "never dwelt on the exemplary places of modern biopolitics: the concentration camp and the structure of the great totalitarian states of the twentieth century." Instead Foucault dwelt on disciplinary institutions, in particular, the prison. But, to Agamben, "the camp -- and not the prison -- is the space that corresponds to this originary structure of the nomos." Agamben argues that life captured within the sovereign ban is bare life, and as such, is life irreparably exposed to the force of death that characterizes sovereignty. Further, Agamben argues that the originary relation of the law to life is not application, but abandonment
Catherine Mills in Agambenʼs Messianic Politics: Biopolitics, Abandonment and Happy Life in Contretemps December 2004
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