At the Intersection of Sovereignty and Biopolitics: The Di-Polaric Spatializations of Money

Authors

  • Tero Auvinen PhD from University of Lapland

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i9.3055

Abstract

The paper explores the incentive structures and the structurally rigid social hierarchies inherent in the polarizing logic of modern credit money and the mutual constitution of money’s sovereign and biopolitical dimensions. It is argued that the monetary system constitutes a major transitory channel for the logic of financial capital to transcend the limitations of sovereign spaces and to transform itself into a biopolitical force. The relationship between the material and the subjective – or the sovereign and the biopolitical – dimensions of money is seen as di-polaric rather than di-chotomic – as a mutually constitutive whole between relational dynamics and the normalizing opportunity structures which govern such interaction. If the sovereign and the biopolitical dimensions of money indeed constitute distinct but inseparable moments of the same totality, there would appear to be more room for strategic combination of heterogeneous analytical practices in emancipatory scholarship than what some of the traditional notions of the epistemological politics of power and sovereignty might suggest.

Author Biography

Tero Auvinen, PhD from University of Lapland

Tero Auvinen has recently completed a PhD in political science at the University of Lapland. His primary research interests include the politics and the sociology of money.

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Published

2010-09-01

How to Cite

Auvinen, T. (2010). At the Intersection of Sovereignty and Biopolitics: The Di-Polaric Spatializations of Money. Foucault Studies, (9), 5–34. https://doi.org/10.22439/fs.v0i9.3055

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Section

Articles