The Politics of Bodies

Is it due to lack of critical agency that precarious persons opt, time and again, for political views that contribute to their marginalization? How should we understand that alleged loss of critical agency and how could it be countered? Influential perspectives in critical theory have answered these questions by highlighting how certain ideological mechanisms, incorporated thoughtlessly by the most vulnerable bodies, function to obscure what their interests are and the causes of the condition they find themselves in. Through an original interpretation of Jacques Rancire's thought, but also going beyond it, The Politics of Bodies establishes a different horizon of reflection. The book's main hypotheses is that the lack of critical agency today has to do more with a loss of the desire for transformation, fostered by neoliberal consensual dynamics, than with techniques of deceit and manipulation. In developing its interpretation of Rancire's thought, the book provides an analysis of certain aesthetic-political and socioeconomic conditions of the historical present, anchored mainly in Latin America. Thus, it addresses the corporeal transformations produced by emancipatory practices, the way in which they affect configurations of power, and the manner in which they can be disseminated in, and in turn alter, the political landscape.