ABSTRACT
Biopolitics offers a distinct theoretical approach to environmental politics. In contrast to topographical accounts of power that ask who holds power and how it should be exercised and limited, biopolitics directs attention to the strategies and techniques that fold “life itself” into calculative governmental rationalties. Biopolitics thus offers a problem space for topologically analyzing how life and power intertwine in contextually specific ways. In environmental studies, this concept encourages scholars to consider the cultural, political and ethical dimensions of seemingly technical problems such as climate change adaptation, conservation and disaster management.
