This annotation responds to the question of migration of Covid-19 knowledge as social critique across borders. In this "quick response" post, originally published in early March, philosopher Frédéric Neyrat outlines different forms of separatism in response to the virus.
original French: https://www.terrestres.org/2020/03/05/virus-et-separation/
eng translation https://territories.substack.com/p/viruses-and-separation
Neyrat begins with an analysis of the French context beginning with President Macron's strategic decision to move from a logic of the commons to a logic of separatism in criticizing French-Muslim activists. Neyrat characterizes this as political separatism: separating the State from its people in order to protect the State. Macron's position co-incides with the emergence of a different form of separatism linked to the pandemic. Neyrat describes this as biopolitical separatism, the phenomena of governments asking individuals to separate themselves in order to protect themselves and prevent the spread of Covid-19.
Neyrat then moves then to characterize the novel coronavirus as an expression of globalization and the anthropocene. Covid-19 emerges within strategies to erase separation by building global networks of trade. This analysis of quarantine or social-distancing within an overarching effort to build global infrastructure thereby overcome separation is the strength of the short piece. In effect, individuals are asked to stay separated within inseparable conditions.
Neyrat concludes by trying to distinguish between different forms of separatism. What kinds of separations do "we" want to produce and what kinds of separations do "we" want to overcome—I am thinking here of Duygu Kasdogan discussion of the complexity of "freedom." What does scholarly freedom mean? How does it intersect with the protestors in the US who argue that social distancing policies are an infringment on personal freedom?
Neyrat raises the possibility of a "Great Refusal," (citing Marcuse, Blanchot) as an open signifier that may produce "a political virality that does not consent to the world order." The text ends by suggesting that a re-imagining of separation, as a contestation of taken-for-granted conditions of the thermo-industrial capitalism, might be possible.
A radio interview with Neyrat (beginning ~29:26) for WFBH's Interchange is linked here
