Biopolitics and gender: between exclusions and living collectives agencements

Abstract

The article proposes a theoretical discussion about the relationship between gender and biopolitics instituted in the current Chilean socio-political system. The work explores the gender dynamics in the context of a multi-systemic crisis of neoliberalism, and the processes of social, economic, environmental, political and epistemic exclusion that reproduce the power relations installed by the sex/gender system. Grounded in a biopolitical theoretical framework, we will analyse the problem considering two perspectives: the critique of thanatopolitics that threatens life on a global scale, and an affirmative biopolitical gaze, which propose dynamics and practices of resistance. The article deepens on how these affirmative biopolitical practices promote the sustainability of life acting as a form of resistance against patriarchal, colonial, classism, mercantilism, and extractivist in the context of integrated global capitalism. In the Chilean context, the irruption of social movements has shown their capacity to create new practices and representations of society, allowing an open and critical reflection on the dynamic of gender and biopolitics, which transforms practices, theories and epistemes.