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In this article I present a dialogue between the results of my ethnographic fieldwork on internally displaced persons and a discussion about the relevance and potential of the Foucauldian concept of biopolitics in contemporary times. The article starts by tracing the attention that Foucault gave towards the transformation of the Providential, omnipresent, and biopolitical State, to one that is satisfied with introducing an environmental technology that no longer governs through the subjection of individuals, but through a "disinvestment" that creates the conditions for the same subjects, now as entrepreneurs, to be in charge of resolving conflicts and contradictions. I use some ethnographic vignettes to understand the actualization of this "disinvestment" that ends up producing and maintaining "zones of social abandonment." Specifically, I am interested in understanding how this "disinvestment" occurs within a State transformation that through the mandates of participation and decentralization, makes these subjects into agents responsible for their own development. Lastly, I suggest that this "zones of social abandonment" can also be zones of desire that go beyond what might be called a low intensity biopolitics. I use the example of the Peace Community of San José de Apartado and their antagonistic practices that are currently challenging these technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Foucault recognizes diverse forms of political rationality that articulate in a specific way the procedures aimed at resolving the issue of "how to govern", distinguishing between societies of sovereignty, discipline and security. Biopower emerges in the transition from disciplinary societies to societies of security as the articulation of two technologies: the anatomopolitics and biopolitics. Sex is the hinge that links the two axis along which the political technology of life is developed. It is related to the disciplining of the body (the domestication, intensification and distribution of its strengths) and with the regulation of the population. Sex translates the "political energy" as well as "the biological vigor" of a society. Nonetheless, Foucalt insists on leaving sex and desire aside in favor of the issue of the role of pleasures. These arguments by Foucault have been problematized by various feminist theorists. On the one hand, they denounce the masculine character of his rhetoric, the androcentrism of his perspective and the pessimism of his vision. On the other hand, they help inspire new analyses of the technologies of the body which make visible the specific gender differences, as well as the possibility to build new political projects in support of the emancipation of women. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents an interview with several philosophers, including Vanessa Lemm, Miguel Vatter, and Gustavo Chirolla. They discuss the philosophy of biopolitics and the theory of subjectivation developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault. They also comment on the relationship between political power and human behavior and daily life.

This article discusses the implementation of the principle of the governance of life in Colombia, as part of an analysis on the forms of social and political uses of knowledge, in particular of hygiene. The practice and discipline of hygiene is considered to have provided the State with useful resources for forging new links with the population, especially during the process of its consolidation, from the end of the 19th century until the middle of the twentieth century. These possibilities enabled the State to create, and at the same time, control citizens' bodies, in various ways and among diverse social groups. Hygienic practice brought together international scientific knowledge with regional efforts toward homogenization, as well as national and local needs for differentiation. In order to study these links, the text focuses on the interaction between the hygiene discipline, its professionals, the international networks of knowledge exchange, and the principal hygiene mechanisms that were introduced to manage the population. Finally, the article reflects on some differences between the national situation and the most distinctive characteristics of the genealogy of biopower. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article reflects on the concept of "anthropotechnics", developed by the German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, showing its dual meaning on "improving the world" (Weltverbesserung) and on "improving oneself" (Selbstverbesserung). The author suggests that this twofold idea can be read in relation to the foucauldian concepts of "technologies for the government of populations " (biopolitics) and "technologies of the self" (aesthetics of existence). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses articles within the issue, which centers around biopolitics, subjectivation, and the philosophy of Michel Foucault.

The paper argues that policies for controlling transnational crime are a crucial dimension for understanding neoliberal hegemony in global governance. It takes on the relation established by Foucault between biopolitics and neoliberalism, in order to reconstruct the discursive formation framing law enforcement and security strategies beyond the spatiality of the nation-state. The paper then turns to outlining the practical expressions of this discourse in the governance techniques deployed to control transnational crime. Overall, this study aims to show how neoliberal criticism of state power is not coupled with a reduction in governance but, on the contrary, implies many regulations and strategies for controlling the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the area of Colombian Putumayo and Caquetá, the missionary project of the Orden Capuchina, settled since the first decade of the 20th Century, wanted to incorporate to the nation those populations that did not fit the white, catholic and healthy citizen ideal. For this purpose, the missioners based their biopolitic intervention on a conception of the indigenous body that articulated notions of the Christian theology with the eugenic and homogenization percepts of the time. This paper analizes three missionary manuscripts to understand the construction of the indigenous image and the dispositions designed to guarantee their incorporation to the civilizatory process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]