Animals before the death of man: (techno)biopower and (de)domestication performances

https://doi.org/10.25058/20112742.n31.10

Iván Darío Ávila Gaitán
Orcid ID: orcid.org /0000-0002-7318-4379
Universidad de los Andes, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Críticos Animales – Ileca, Colombia

Abstract:

This article aims to resituate the animal issue before the decadence of Western humanism. Firstly, we argue that the ideal of modern-colonial Man keeps direct relation to the deployment of biopower, characterizing normalization societies. Likewise, we discuss the turning of biopower into technobiopower, and of normalization societies into an informatics of domination. This shift is correlated to the emergence of transhumanism. Secondly, the place of animals, particularly domestic animals, is presented in the context of the deployment of (techno)biopower. Animal farming is analyzed through devices such as industrial or ecological farms, and in relation to veterinary and zootechnical knowledge. Finally, in contraposition to domestication performance taking place within the framework of those devices, we theorize on what could be a de-domestication performance capable of challenging contemporary (trans)humanism.

Keywords: domestication, biopower, transhumanism, zootechnics.