ABSTRACT
One of the main obstacles to explore “thana-capitalism,” consists in dealing with bio-capitalism. Even, the concept of bio-power was originally coined by social theorist Michel Foucault (2009), who was obsessed to present a conceptual model to understand the techniques used by the nation-state to administer to population, territory and life. In contrast to other political organizations, Foucault adds, modern nation-states are based on the prerogative to create life by letting others die. This technology controls threats dispersing over the bodies by the introduction of an economy of discipline. Alluding to the metaphor of viruses, Foucault argues convincingly that the power of discipline is not oriented to eradicate dangers, but to mitigate their effects in society. Whether a vaccine exhibits an inoculated virus, it shows how discipline works. Although widely cited and critically discussed, the theory of bio-capitalism was recently brought to discussion by Tim Ingold in his book Being Alive (2011). In this project, he gathers interesting information collated from his earlier ethnographies to present a new theory of human agency and its environment. Although the Occident devoted considerable attention to the question of life, it was based on a Cartesian dualism where the introduction of technology was tilted at dividing humans from the rest of creation. In fact, unlike hunters and gatherers, who perceive the world as a continuum, Westerners monopolized technology to reinforce their territorial attachment within sedentary forms of production. Isolated from the environment, modern science (even biology) constructed around “the self ” the idea that humans should be enthralled over what nonhuman is. In that way, life and the environment were preserved only in laboratories or reservoirs duly protected from daily contact, starting from the premise that the West acknowledges human life should be disengaged from nature. As something superior, humans not only are invested to administer the earth at their discretion, but also produce a dislocation between observed object and observers. This dichotomy gave to modern science the necessary objectivity which hunters or gatherers lacks, but at the same time adopted the values of capitalism as an ever-existing reality. If today the failures of ecological policies and programs are evident, this happens because humankind has developed a “dwelling perspective” of animals. With this in mind, hunters and gatherers had a “relational perspective”
of the world in which they dwell, but Westerners need mapping to be visually inserted into a specific territory. The relational views connect with nature from a closer stance, considering that humankind is enrooted in the natural life and cycles of earth. This begs a more than pungent question: Where does the concept of dwelling perspective come from?
