On the Discourse of the Victim in the Context of Biopolitics

Abstract

The victim is a universal cultural phenomenon. It consolidates the community, causes a powerful affect that allows the community to experience itself as a collective body. The main hypothesis of the article is that on the basis of understanding the specifics of the victim in modern culture, trauma can be understood as a biopolitical concept. The authors assume that in the modern cultural space the meaning of sacrifice is pushed to marginal positions by the meaning of victim, and show that the talk about the victim takes place within the narrative of trauma. Such semantic transformations vividly illustrate the logic of changing power dispositions. A clear marker of trauma is not so much the painful sense of loss caused by catastrophic events, but the breakdown and identity crisis that accompany the trauma. The victim appears as a protest of a unique collective body-topos opposed to a society of unified consumption. Arguments are given for understanding trauma as a biopolitical concept: it is a compromise between biopolitical ethics, which emphasises the sanctity of life, and the basis of biopolitics, which is connected with the reproduction of the figure of the victim as the embodiment of ‘bare life’. It is concluded that cultural trauma with its collective affectation can be regarded as the main nerve of modern biopolitics. Further reflection on trauma in the biopolitical context will make it possible to actualise the issue of transformation of the role of the victim in culture, to show a new perspective of trauma in the dramatic play of knowledge and power.