Brenna Bhandar is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, SOAS, at the University of London.
Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i. He is the author of
Brenna Bhandar is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Law, SOAS, at the University of London.
Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller is Professor of Political Science at the University of Hawai'i. He is the author of
Renisa Mawani, 2015. "Insects, War, Plastic Life", Plastic Materialities: Politics, Legality, and Metamorphosis in the Work of Catherine Malabou, Brenna Bhandar, Jonathan Goldberg-Hiller
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This chapter reads Catherine Malabou’s “new scheme” of plasticity and her efforts to deconstruct the biology/ history divide as an important opportunity to revisit the human/ nonhuman distinction that has been repeatedly challenged yet continues to persist in critical theory. To do so, it makes a brief foray through the world of entomology to consider insects as plastic life. This chapter argues that the plasticity of various insect species, particularly their ability to mutate in response to hostile environments, has led to their absorption into global biopolitical regimes that remain deeply entangled and equally invested in human and nonhuman life and death. Focused on the geopolitics of war, this chapter approaches the insect as dispositif and in so doing raises questions about the plasticity of plasticity and its ethical possibilities.
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