Educación Física y Ciencia (Nov 2012)
Biopower in the bodies
Abstract
Lately, the studies of biopolitics and biopower have risen significantly. It is an old issue, which is present in Greek philosophy and in its reality. It is the old argument of the relationship and the intrusion of politics in the life and the overcoming of the state of nature. The reality of biopolitics is reflected in the dimension that technology acquires and in the siege of the global powers against democracy. The human body as an external and visible entity resists all kinds of interventions and fastenings aimed at the individualization and establishment of a totalitarian reality. Tanatopolitics and Biopolitics are interlaced to manage life and death in a chilling reality where technique introduces the artifice beyond the natural. The human body as a borderline area between the natural and the artificial expresses the scopes of post-humanism. A more balanced physical culture could help to curb the widespread dehumanization, which reduces and degrades the body at the same time, while the powers submit, discriminate, and intervene in the more and more docile bodies.