Biopolítica e animalidade precária: um percurso cruzado entre Foucault e Butler

Resumo

This article is situated within the field of contemporary political philosophy and investigates, through the works of Michel Foucault and Judith Butler, how life became a central object of knowledge and power in modernity. Its objective is to understand how life was politically constituted as a form of precarious existence, through the shift from the Aristotelian model of zoon politikon to the figure of the animal as an epistemic and technical paradigm. The study shows that, with the emergence of modern biology, life came to be governed by normative dispositifs that define what can be recognized, protected, or discarded. By incorporating Butler’s notion of framing, it becomes evident that precarious life results from discursive operations that determine its visibility and value. The article concludes that animality, far from being a natural given, constitutes the fundamental index of modern precariousness, functioning as a key for understanding life as vulnerable, governed, and thus politically exposed. The critique of the essentialization of life opens the possibility for minimal politics grounded in the shared condition of precariousness, shifting the criteria of protection beyond the human and demanding ethical-political practices committed to sustaining life as such.