Biopolitical mills. Topographies of Power in Early Peripheral Capitalism

Abstract

City of Lodz is an exceptional case of industrialsettlement, a focal point of di}erent kinds and techniquesof power typical for nineteenth century industrial capi-talism. Disciplinary power parceling bodies, biopowerproviding with population stability, paternalistic gaze ofthe factory owner and monarchic sovereignty of the tsa-rist rule once met in the Scheibler and Grohman’s indu-strial establishment and nearby workers’ housing estate.{is peripheral capitalism and relations accompanyingit let us verify Foucaultian analysis of power and have anew look at it. Di}erent and less stable pattern of corre-lation of power techniques emerges here; power is nolonger strictly related to the temporal matrix or a func-tional demands of capitalist production, and temporarilyossi/es in relocated and contingent con/gurations. It isan implicit illustration of a new paradigm of power ana-lysis, which Foucault presented when his interest was notan industrial city any more, namely the „topologicalanalysis”, as S. J. Collier aptly called it.

Keywords

• Łódź
• Księży Młyn
• fabryka
• miasto przemysłowe – władza dyscyplinarna
• biowładza
• biopolityka
• carat
• Foucault
• Collier
• topologia
• peryferia.