Bodies in Transit: Speculation and the Biopolitical Imaginary

IF 0.5 4区 社会学 0 HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY
Emily Holloway
{"title":"Bodies in Transit: Speculation and the Biopolitical Imaginary","authors":"Emily Holloway","doi":"10.1353/aq.2023.0001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Abstract:This essay explores the Bodies in Transit archive, an artifact of mid-nineteenth-century public health administration in New York City. The ledgers, which tracked the transit of every corpse that moved through the island of Manhattan between 1859 and 1894 and categorized entrants by their cause of death, nationality, and occupation, present a unique lens through which I explore the intersections of speculation, biopolitics, and urban space. I first establish a conceptual framework of \"speculation\" by dissecting its etymological genealogy, the roots of which share a preoccupation with vision and sight. I note that in practice, the abstracting and rationalizing tendencies of speculation operate by envisioning, calculating, and coercing specific outcomes into realization. I apply this framework to Bodies in Transit to historicize the ways in which biopolitics, the means through which the state forms, represents, and manages populations, are indexed to speculative economic practices. I read Bodies in Transit through the framework of speculation to articulate a field of meaning that illuminates the complex material and epistemic conditions surrounding its implementation and utility. As I argue, the ledgers were a response to the acceleration of real estate speculation in Manhattan, a trend that incentivized property owners to disinter burial grounds to relocate corpses to rural areas, and thereby connected the speculative logics of real estate to those of public health, spatial order, and surveillance. By thinking across and through the layered meanings of \"speculation,\" this essay illuminates how the state's economy of knowledge is intimately related to biopolitical practices of surveillance and abstract representations of financial value in the modern city.","PeriodicalId":51543,"journal":{"name":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","volume":"75 1","pages":"1 - 26"},"PeriodicalIF":0.5000,"publicationDate":"2023-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"AMERICAN QUARTERLY","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1353/aq.2023.0001","RegionNum":4,"RegionCategory":"社会学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"0","JCRName":"HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0

Abstract

Abstract:This essay explores the Bodies in Transit archive, an artifact of mid-nineteenth-century public health administration in New York City. The ledgers, which tracked the transit of every corpse that moved through the island of Manhattan between 1859 and 1894 and categorized entrants by their cause of death, nationality, and occupation, present a unique lens through which I explore the intersections of speculation, biopolitics, and urban space. I first establish a conceptual framework of "speculation" by dissecting its etymological genealogy, the roots of which share a preoccupation with vision and sight. I note that in practice, the abstracting and rationalizing tendencies of speculation operate by envisioning, calculating, and coercing specific outcomes into realization. I apply this framework to Bodies in Transit to historicize the ways in which biopolitics, the means through which the state forms, represents, and manages populations, are indexed to speculative economic practices. I read Bodies in Transit through the framework of speculation to articulate a field of meaning that illuminates the complex material and epistemic conditions surrounding its implementation and utility. As I argue, the ledgers were a response to the acceleration of real estate speculation in Manhattan, a trend that incentivized property owners to disinter burial grounds to relocate corpses to rural areas, and thereby connected the speculative logics of real estate to those of public health, spatial order, and surveillance. By thinking across and through the layered meanings of "speculation," this essay illuminates how the state's economy of knowledge is intimately related to biopolitical practices of surveillance and abstract representations of financial value in the modern city.
运输中的身体:思辨与生物政治想象
摘要:本文探讨了19世纪中期纽约市公共卫生管理的一件文物——“过境尸体”档案。这些分类账记录了1859年至1894年间每一具穿过曼哈顿岛的尸体,并根据他们的死因、国籍和职业对进入者进行了分类,为我提供了一个独特的视角,通过这个视角,我探索了投机、生命政治和城市空间的交叉点。我首先通过剖析“思辨”的词源谱系,建立了一个“思辨”的概念框架,其根源与视觉和视觉有共同的关注。我注意到,在实践中,投机的抽象和合理化倾向是通过设想、计算和强制实现具体结果来运作的。我将这一框架应用于运输中的身体,将生命政治(国家形成、代表和管理人口的手段)与投机经济实践联系起来的方式历史化。我通过思考的框架来阅读《运输中的身体》,以阐明一个意义领域,阐明围绕其实施和效用的复杂材料和认知条件。正如我所说,账簿是对曼哈顿房地产投机加速的一种回应,这种趋势激励业主挖掘墓地,将尸体转移到农村地区,从而将房地产的投机逻辑与公共卫生、空间秩序和监视联系起来。通过对“投机”的层层含义的思考,本文阐明了国家的知识经济如何与现代城市中监视的生物政治实践和金融价值的抽象表现密切相关。
本文章由计算机程序翻译,如有差异,请以英文原文为准。
求助全文
约1分钟内获得全文 求助全文
来源期刊
AMERICAN QUARTERLY
AMERICAN QUARTERLY HUMANITIES, MULTIDISCIPLINARY-
CiteScore
0.80
自引率
0.00%
发文量
58
期刊介绍: American Quarterly represents innovative interdisciplinary scholarship that engages with key issues in American Studies. The journal publishes essays that examine American societies and cultures, past and present, in global and local contexts. This includes work that contributes to our understanding of the United States in its diversity, its relations with its hemispheric neighbors, and its impact on world politics and culture. Through the publication of reviews of books, exhibitions, and diverse media, the journal seeks to make available the broad range of emergent approaches to American Studies.
×
引用
GB/T 7714-2015
复制
MLA
复制
APA
复制
导出至
BibTeX EndNote RefMan NoteFirst NoteExpress
×
提示
您的信息不完整,为了账户安全,请先补充。
现在去补充
×
提示
您因"违规操作"
具体请查看互助需知
我知道了
×
提示
确定
请完成安全验证×
copy
已复制链接
快去分享给好友吧!
我知道了
右上角分享
点击右上角分享
0
联系我们:info@booksci.cn Book学术提供免费学术资源搜索服务,方便国内外学者检索中英文文献。致力于提供最便捷和优质的服务体验。 Copyright © 2023 布克学术 All rights reserved.
京ICP备2023020795号-1
ghs 京公网安备 11010802042870号
Book学术文献互助
Book学术文献互助群
群 号:481959085
Book学术官方微信