ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 has a specific focus on the communicative dynamics of the biopolitical mode – in the instrumentalisation of life and objectification of personhood through substantive and symbolic messages. The fundamental argument is that the mode is being manoeuvred during the pandemic times by the ruling regimes around the world, with the goal of controlling the body, mind and conduct of populations. It is also argued that beyond such overdrive there lies an ‘offence is the best defence’ strategy, meant to hide the abject failure in governance in crisis times. Beginning with Michel Foucault’s pioneering ideas on biopolitics and governmentality but going beyond to address more contemporary and deeper studies on the theme the analysis also highlights the innovative and subtler ways of relegating the ‘unknown’ to the background by the powers that be. Reference is made to the twin processes of the ‘biologisation of the digital’ and the ‘digitalisation of biology’ to explain how they contribute to the millennial biopolitical instrumentality.
