Topologies of vulnerability and the proliferation of camp life

Abstract

An important theoretical insight in critical geography of late has been the conceptual reevaluation of space topologically, in a manner that moves us away from an insistence on topographical priority. Unlike topography that relies on fixity, placement, grounding, and mapping, topology approaches space as a matter of relationality, redistribution, layering, transformation, or virtuality. The camp has been a ubiquitous geographical figure of late-modern life that has been subjected to topographical representations and rationalities. Recently, we have been encouraged to rethink the camp as a series of topological relations between the potentiality of spatial conditions of power and the capacity of bodies to be captured by regimes of sovereign exception. This paper examines two theorists who have made the space of the camp intelligible topologically: Agamben and Butler. These theorists help us to understand that what manifests itself topographically is often the result of topological dispositions that invest bodies with various forms of becoming. Whereas Agamben's camp topology allows us to see how political power can be ‘virtually everywhere’, Butler extends this theorizing by being more open to the presence of differential regimes of exposure to vulnerability. In this manner, Butler still finds a use for some form of critical topography.