Food as a Biopower Means of Control: The Use of Food in Asylum Regimes

Abstract

States struggle to maintain a facade of sovereignty against the large-scale migration of immigrants and asylum seekers, who are trying to find their way into the receiving societies. Increased borders control, reinforced socio-legal boundaries and detention facilities are some of the constant efforts' states employ to quell the immigration of asylum seekers and control their presence. Disciplinary power often appears in a centralized form, such as borders and immigration systems, but also in decentralized, dispersed forms, ranging from medical practices, media and market influences, as well as many others, which were termed by Foucault as biopower. This force - which in its broad meaning describes deliberate attempts to interfere with the essential human existence and manage all spheres of life - is defined by Foucault as a ‘political power [that] had assigned itself the task of administering life’. Biopower is employed to manage, regulate and govern lives, produce obedience, and subordinate individuals and communities to disciplinary practices. The control over lives should be understood comprehensively, so that includes ‘a life of the city…political life, economic life…’ as well as ‘the management of … money … information, communication, water, sheep, grain …’. Accordingly, we argue that food is a form of biopower, an apparatus utilized to control and govern asylum-seekers. We posit that the state uses food to monitor the individuals' well-being, the community life, and affect the social existence. In this article, “food” refers to the role sustenance plays in providing nutrition and reinforcing socio-cultural values.