This collection expands scholarly understandings of citizenship in an age in which the material body and its health, vitality, and natural and social environments not only create and discipline the citizen-subject, but also provide the conditions necessary for its recognition and political agency. Together, the chapters consider biocitizenship as a unique mode of biopolitical governance, but also as a response and sometimes a resistance to it. Looking closely at the ways in which the body and citizenship interanimate each other, the collection moves away from biocitizenship as a static form of ... More

This collection expands scholarly understandings of citizenship in an age in which the material body and its health, vitality, and natural and social environments not only create and discipline the citizen-subject, but also provide the conditions necessary for its recognition and political agency. Together, the chapters consider biocitizenship as a unique mode of biopolitical governance, but also as a response and sometimes a resistance to it. Looking closely at the ways in which the body and citizenship interanimate each other, the collection moves away from biocitizenship as a static form of biomedical subjectivity or category of belonging and redefines it as a dynamic and essential—sometimes generative, and sometimes limiting—element of biopolitics. The book has three primary goals: to serve as the first multidisciplinary forum on biocitizenship, bringing together a variety of voices from different fields (including voices from outside the academy); to redefine biocitizenship as a broad mode of political action linked to health, bodies, and life; and to critically interrogate both the “bio” and “citizenship” of biocitizenship.