Biopolitica, necropolítica e racismo na gestão do covid-19

Abstract

Taking as a starting point the problematic management of the pandemic of Covid-19 in Brazil, I analyze how Foucault thought about the problem of epidemics, starting with the reflections dedicated to the opposition between the disciplinary device and the exercise of sovereign power. Subsequently, I analyze the issue of epidemics, and health in general, from the theoretical perspective opened by the concept of biopolitics of population. Finally, to reflect on the biopolitical management of the Covid-19 pandemic carried out by the Bolsonaro government as a representative of an extreme form of this power device. I argue that the way the pandemic was managed in Brazil, considered the worst management in the world, has all the characteristics defined by Achille Mbembe as necropolitics, highlighting the place that racism and denialism have in this policy of systematic exposure to death.