Defying the normal: biopolitics and the rising bodies in the time of Covid-19

Abstract

This essay discusses the biopolitics of the coronavirus pandemic practiced on both human and non-human animals. By introducing, the idea of biopolitics and othering the author brings two animals, bats and minks, together to explain the role of biopolitics in manipulating the bodies of non-human animals. The discourses surrounding both animals frame bats as the wild and minks as the productive— and the categorization of both disembodies the animals and subjects them to exploitation. The essay examines the role of the environment in creating a shared vulnerability between human and animals. The coronavirus pandemic is a crisis evoked by a system that profits from the use of biopolitics through the creations of dichotomies between the “normal” and the “abnormal.” To reimagine our future, we need to seek a sustainability that fosters entanglements, instead of separations, of all creatures. © 2022 by the author(s).