Interdisciplinary Studies in the Humanities

Bio-resistance as an alternative to bio-power: Analyzing the self-realization of subaltern population in contemporary Iranian history

Document Type : Original Research Paper

Authors

F. Nateghi 1
E. Towfigh 2

1 Ph.D Student of Political Sociology, Department of Sociology, Central Tehran Branch, Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran

2 Ph.D of Sociology, Department of Cultural Studies, Science and Culture University, Tehran, Iran

https://doi.org/10.22035/isih.2021.4317.4345
Abstract
This paper seeks to explicate "bio-resistance" in an interdisciplinary perspective inspired by political philosophy, history, anthropology, and sociology. Here the concept of "bio-resistance" is formulated along the lines of thought drawn from an integrated reading of Spinoza and Deleuze. Using the genealogical method and the transcendental empiricism approach, this paper has also undertaken a historical study on the emergence of multitude as a product of the actualization of "bio-resistance". In the contemporary Iranian history, population as the multitude has been realized within the period between the collapse of the old and the blossoming of the new order during Constitutional Movement and Social Movements between1941 and 1953, as well as during in the 1979 Iranian Revolution. In each of these moments, Anjumans, Unions, and Shuras can be regarded as forms of multitude which displayed the collective resistance of subaltern groups against "bio-power". "Existence" is the immanent cause of life, and human beings faced with dangers threatening their existence, tend to be united under a common destiny. "Bio-resistance" is thus a collective political activity in the service of self-preservation, made possible by the transformation of subjugated body-subjects into liberated ones in pure optical and sound situations. The results of this study guide us to three fundamental principles: 1. To exist is to resist; 2. Preservation of existence a political praxis; 3. There can be no individual liberation without a collective effort.

Keywords

multitude
liberated body-subjects
Anjumans
Unions
Shuras

Subjects

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  • Receive Date 07 April 2021
  • Revise Date 15 December 2021
  • Accept Date 20 January 2022

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