Biopolitics and violence: A reading from Mexico and Central America

Abstract

This article is based on a reading and interpretation regarding the proliferation of violence in Mexico and Central America. The discussion will take as axes the notions of bare life and biopolitics, discussing the relevancy of the latter for analyzing the exercise of power, governance and political systems in the region. The study argues that violence shows the mutation of governance forms cultivated in a model of the disciplinary subjectivation of work (Fordism), toward the risk management inherent in control societies (neoliberalism). Atrocity on the body can be read as a political emptying of life.