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In the Shadowlands of Sovereignty: The Politics of Enclosure in Alejandro González Iñárritu’s Babel

2013; University of Toronto Press; Volume: 82; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.3138/utq.82.4.950

1712-5278

Elizabeth S. Anker,

Philosophy, Ethics, and Existentialism

In recent years, sovereignty has become a newly central yet also hotly contested term within political theory, as nation-state territorial jurisdiction is increasingly subordinated to other ambulatory and often piratical networks and flows of people, services, goods, and capital. This essay analyzes Alejandro González Iñárritu’s 2006 film Babel for insight into the contemporary formations of sovereignty and its exceptional spaces, enquiring about that term’s currency as a regulatory construct. In so doing, I critique the usual tendency to explain sovereignty – individual and juridical – through the logic of the border and enclosure. Drawing on Roberto Esposito’s work on the immunitary paradigm, I look to Babel to develop an alternate mapping of community that, while refusing to culminate with Esposito’s affirmative biopolitics, approaches individual and collective embodiment alike as sites of flux, porosity, messiness, and vulnerability.