Necropolitics - Living Death in Mexico

This book offers a contemporary look at violence in Mexico and argues for a recalibration in how necropolitics, as the administration of life and death, is understood. The author locates the forces of mortality directly on the body, rather than as an object of government, thereby placing death in a politics of the everyday. This necropolitics is explored through testimonies of individuals living in towns overrun by organized crime and resistance groups, namely, the autodefensa movement, that operate throughout Michoacán, one of the most violent states in Mexico. This volume studies how individuals and communities go on living not in spite of the death that surrounds life, but more disturbingly by attuning to it.

List of contents

1: Life, death and power.- 2: Necropolitics: From corpse to body.- 3: The wounded body: A necropolitics of living death.- 4: Necropolitics and resistance: The autodefensa movement.- 5: Thanatopolitics: Mutilating autodefensas.- 6: Mutilation extended.- 7: Making killable: (Pure) violence and a suicidal state.- 8: Necropolitics: Governing by the campfire.

About the author

R. Guy Emerson is Professor at the Department of International Relations and Political Science at the Universidad de las Américas Puebla, Mexico.

Summary

This book offers a contemporary look at violence in Mexico and argues for a recalibration in how necropolitics, as the administration of life and death, is understood. The author locates the forces of mortality directly on the body, rather than as an object of government, thereby placing death in a politics of the everyday. This necropolitics is explored through testimonies of individuals living in towns overrun by organized crime and resistance groups, namely, the autodefensa movement, that operate throughout Michoacán, one of the most violent states in Mexico. This volume studies how individuals and communities go on living not in spite of the death that surrounds life, but more disturbingly by attuning to it.

Product details

• Authors: R Guy Emerson, R. Guy Emerson
• Publisher: Springer, Berlin
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 01.01.2019
• EAN: 9783030123017
• ISBN: 978-3-0-3012301-7
• No. of pages: 190
• Dimensions: 151 mm x 219 mm x 17 mm
• Weight: 390 g
• Illustrations: XI, 190 p.
• Series: Studies of the Americas; Studies of the Americas
• Subjects: Social sciences, law, business > Political science > Comparative and international political science; Verstehen, B, Political Science, Political structure & processes, Terrorism, armed struggle, Political Science and International Studies, Organized crime, Terrorism, Political Violence, Governance and Government, Terrorism and Political Violence, Latin America—Politics and government, South & Central America (including Mexico), Latin America, Latin American Politics