The Emancipatory Power of the Body in Everyday Life

ISBN-13: 9783031448324 / Angielski / Twarda / 2023

Leszek Koczanowicz

Opis

The COVID-19 pandemic has powerfully highlighted the tight knot of bodiliness and politics. This relationship lies at the heart of this book. The author explores how events in everyday life take on a deeply political dimension, and how the body becomes a site of political practice. Subject to regulation, the body functions as a vehicle of oppressive social influences, and has been studied as such by philosophers within the framework of biopolitics. However, the body is also a locus of resistance and rebellion against the entrenched rules, a quality which the author refers to as somapower. The revolt of the body usually begins and develops beyond political spaces – in emancipatory cultural niches, which may gradually accrue political resonance.  While this microphysics of emancipation, with its potential for remodeling political life, is particularly important in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, it is also a relevant force in democracies, where it may foster social change. 

Spis treści

Chapter 1 Concepts: Somapower, the Microphysics of Emancipation, and the Politics of Everyday Life.- Chapter 2 Applications: Everyday Life, the Body and Strategies of Resistance.- Chapter 3 The Pandemic and the Politics of the Body.- Chapter 4 Conclusions.

O autorze

Leszek Koczanowicz is Professor of Cultural Studies and Political Science at the Faculty of Humanities, SWPS University, Wrocław, Poland.

Blurb

The COVID-19 pandemic has powerfully highlighted the tight knot of bodiliness and politics. This relationship lies at the heart of this book. The author explores how events in everyday life take on a deeply political dimension, and how the body becomes a site of political practice. Subject to regulation, the body functions as a vehicle of oppressive social influences, and has been studied as such by philosophers within the framework of biopolitics. However, the body is also a locus of resistance and rebellion against the entrenched rules, a quality which the author refers to as somapower. The revolt of the body usually begins and develops beyond political spaces – in emancipatory cultural niches, which may gradually accrue political resonance.  While this microphysics of emancipation, with its potential for remodeling political life, is particularly important in authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, it is also a relevant force in democracies, where it may foster social change. 

Leszek Koczanowicz is Professor of Cultural Studies and Political Science at the Faculty of Humanities, SWPS University, Wrocław, Poland.