Biopolitical Putin's Regime

nieobowiązkowe

Very good knowledge of English required, enabling critical reading of texts and discussions in English. Knowledge of Russian is not mandatory but it is welcome

Russian full scale invasion of Ukraine has significant geopolitical and biopolitical consequences for Russian society and neighbouring countries. The tightening of the Putin’s biopolitical regime, however, could be visible much earlier. By referring to the existing literature on biopolitics, thanatopolitics and particularly on analysis of the Putin’s regime as a biopolitical regime, and by referring to the existing data including first-hand ethnographic materials collected during the field research in Russia and neighbouring countries, these seminars encourage the discussions on shape and particularities of Putin’s biopolitical regime and their impact on Russian citizens and societies of neighbouring countries.

As Michael Foucault claimed biopolitics are used by modern state to stabilize and legitimize the power relations by taking the control over life of populations. During the seminars we will refer to the classical concept of biopolitics introduced by a French philosopher, and to its further conceptualisations, particularly to the understanding of biopolitics, as it was introduced by Andrey Makarychev and Alexandra Yatsyk to describe biopolitics of the Post-Soviet states. As both authors argue: “biopolitics does not only correspond with regulation of (pre)existing populations, but also might be part of nation-building, a subjectifying force that produces various collective identities grounded in accepting sets of corporeal practices of control over human bodies and their physical existence”. Through mechanisms of social inclusion and exclusions biopolitical communities, whether national or religious, are created by the sovereign, while others are excluded and repressed. Therefore, during the seminars we will discuss various aspects of the Putin’s biopolitical regime, and its impact on the Russian society and neighbouring countries. Among the problems we will discuss are:

- Putin’s third presidency as an important turning point in Russian biopolitics and a moment of further turn toward authoritarianism.

- ideological dimensions of Putin’s biopolitical regime: a national narrative on the Russian World, changes in the sphere of the culture, a role of “traditional values”

- impact of the biopolitics on domestic biopolitics: extension of state sovereignty over the private lives of the citizens, restrictions on citizen’s sexual rights, development of social programs stressing the traditional femininity and masculinity, state controlled reproduction, secularized hygienic discourse stressing dangers coming from “internal Others” and immigrants to Russia.

- impact of the Putin’s regime on the international relations: biopolitics as fulfilment of the geopolitical strategies focused on control over territories of neighbourhood countries, development of biopolitical instruments focused on management of populations of neighbouring countries, biopolitical discipline mechanisms used to manipulate ethnic Russian minority that reside in post-Soviet countries

- the full-scale invasion of Ukraine as a peak of Putin’s biopolitical regime, which clearly showed who are and who are not our “biopolitical community”, appearance of a new hierarchy of lives

Foucault, Michel, François Ewald, Alessandro Fontana, Arnold I Davidson, Michel Senellart, and Graham Burchell. 2009. Security, Territory, Population: Lectures at the Collège de France 1977--1978. First Edit. New York, NY: Picador. https://www.amazon.com/Security-Territory-Population-Lectures-1977-1978/dp/0312203608.

Hanukai, Maksim. 2023. “Introduction: Cultural Biopolitics in Russia.” Russian Literature 141: 1–11. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ruslit.2022.11.005.

Kalinina, Ekaterina. 2017. “Becoming Patriots in Russia: Biopolitics, Fashion, and Nostalgia.” Nationalities Papers 45 (1): 8–24. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2016.1267133.

Makarychev, Andrey. 2018. “Beyond Geopolitics: Russian Soft Power, Conservatism, and Biopolitics.” Russian Politics 3 (1): 135–50. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1163/2451-8921-00301007.

———. 2022. Popular Biopolitics and Populism at Europe’s Eastern Margins. Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004513792.

Makarychev, Andrey, and Alexandra Yatsyk. 2017. “Biopolitics and National Identities: Between Liberalism and Totalization.” Nationalities Papers 45 (1): 1–7. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2016.1225705.

———. 2018a. “Illiberal Geographies: Popular Geopolitics and Russian Biopolitical Regionalism.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 59 (1): 51–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/15387216.2018.1434804.

———. 2018b. “Imperial Biopolitics and Its Disavowals.” Region 7 (1): 3–22. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26537989.

———. 2019. Critical Biopolitics of the Post-Soviet: From Populations to Nations. Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books. https://www.amazon.com/Critical-Biopolitics-Post-Soviet-Populations-Nations/dp/1498562396.

Naterstad, Tora Berge. 2023. “The Reproduction of Nationalism and the Nationalism of Reproduction: Putin’s Biopolitics of Defending Tradition, 2012–2021.” Nationalities Papers, 1–20. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2023.85.

Romashko, Tatiana. 2018. “Biopolitics and Hegemony in Contemporary Russian Cultural Policy.” Russian Politics 3 (1): 88–113. https://doi.org/10.1163/2451-8921-00301005.

Stella, Francesca, and Nadya Nartova. 2015. “Sexual Citizenship, Nationalism and Biopolitics in Putin’s Russia.” In Sexuality, Citizenship and Belonging: Trans-National and Intersectional Perspectives, 24–42. London and New York: Routledge.

Taras, Ray. 2012. “The Power of Images and the Images of Power: Past and Present Identity in Russia’s International Relations.” In Russia’s Identity in International Relations: Images, Perceptions, Misperceptions, 1–10. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203112427.

Student knows what is the biopolitical regime, how biopolitics works and what is the particularity of the biopolitics of Putin’s regime and post-soviet states

Student is able to use such categories as: bio-geo-political-theological situation, bionationalism, traditional values, internal Others in his/her analysis of the empirical materials

Student increases his/her reflexivity in the perception of processes taking place in the Russian Federation and post-Soviet states and their impact on the social life of various groups being subjects of Putin’s biopolitical regime

Student develops his/her competences to critically look at political reality as well as critically discuss various aspects of social life

- mandatory reading of texts and oral reactions on the readings during the seminar's discussions

- active participation in seminars and preparation of a short presentation/introduction to the discussion on a given topic with referances to the literature discussed during the classes

- oral exam