The biopolitics of life at sea, or, Toward a theory of maritime exception
Date
2010-05-26T20:27:45Z
Authors
Harvey, Daniel Stephen
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Abstract
The maritime space of ships is more often developed as a metaphor than critically
investigated. Abstract fantasies of global flows and fluid motions ignore the material
histories of ships, which often involve the capture of individuals and populations within
networks of legal and extra-legal power. Standing as an exception to the bounded
geographies of nation-states, ocean space lies beyond any single sovereign’s power; the
passengers of ships are subject to multiple forms of biopower, wielded by diverse actors.
I examine three ship-spaces—British slave ships, the migrant ship Komagata Maru, and
Disney’s cruise ships—to tease out the techniques of biopower at work through them,
exposing the ways in which passengers are made to live and rendered dead. Drawing on
the work of Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben, I argue that the exceptional
suspension of law at sea is integral to the rule of law on land.
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Keywords
Komagatamaru (Ship), Cruise ships, Slave ships, Canada, United States