ABSTRACT
Aristotle partly defined the 'simple' fact of living in opposition to politics. For him, living itself was beyond the activities of the polis and, therefore, by definition, outside politics. As Thrift observes, drawing upon Agamben's terminology (1995), one of Foucault's contributions was to shatter this neat distinction, pointing out that, ironically, 'bare life' was increasingly politicized, in fact one of the central concerns of the polis: 'Indeed it is possible to argue that simple natural life is now the most active zone of politics' (Thrift 2004: 147). Biobanks of the kind discussed in this book illuminate the advance and expansion of the realm of biopolitics. While they differ in terms of structure, history, and context, they all draw upon a series of developments in the biopolitical history of states and bureaucracies over the last couple of centuries and their growing concerns with the monitoring and governing of bodies and populations. This chapter outlines the case of the Icelandic Health Sector Database (HSD), exploring some of the critical issues it has raised (see also Pálsson 2007), the main reasons for its termination, and its implications for governance.
