Pugliese, Joseph. Biopolitics of the More-Than-Human: Forensic Ecologies of Violence.

Biopolitics of the More-Than-Human: Forensic Ecologies of Violence by Joseph Pugliese presents an elaborate exploration that extends the concept of biopolitics beyond an anthropocentric lens, examining the ways in which the lives and bodies of human and more-than-human entities—animals, plants, and entire ecosystems—are entangled in subjection to and perpetration of violence through militarization by Israel and the United States. Pugliese argues that understanding these dynamics is crucial for addressing the environmental and ethical challenges of our time.  

In his book, Pugliese refuses an anthropocentric perspective on violence, even on the level of language, noting that he will not use terms such as ‘nonhuman,’ explaining instead that “more-than-human […] effectively brings into focus my refusal […] to view either human or other-than-human entities as categorically separated from each other” (3). His concept of forensic ecologies, moreover, he notes, reflects his academic focus on “the casesura that divides the human from that which is cast as altogether other-than-human and is thus categorized as lawfully killable,” elucidating the “complex assemblage of biopolitical forces mobilized by the Israeli state and the United States in their respective military campaigns” (4). Pugliese’s book focuses on military destruction of life, but includes human and more-than-human, including air, water, animals, and plants in the list of victims of military and state violence. Through his examination of occupied Palestine, Guantánamo, and areas targeted by US drone strikes in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen, Pugliese challenges human exceptionalism by asserting non-human victims of war and colonialism as intricately linked to and impacted by the same violent biopolitical systems as human subjects are.  

Hence, Pugliese’s theoretical framework can be read to resonate with Judith Butler’s Frames of War, Achille Mbembe’s Necropolitics, as well as Donna Haraway’s Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene, bringing together strands of thought from biopolitical studies of violence, ecocide/environmental studies, as well as Indigenous knowledges of more-than-human kinship. While posthuman scholars such as Bruno Latour and Rosi Braidotti may be found to pose broad philosophical inquiries into the relationships between humans and the non-human world, Pugliese’s goes further, providing a unique and focused examination on the mechanisms of violence and control across species. Pugliese’s work thus presents a significant contribution to the field of perpetrator studies, pushing the boundaries of traditional biopolitical discourse to include the ecological and the more-than-human in discussions of violence. 

Throughout the book’s four chapters, Pugliese analyses the acts of violence that result from armed conflict and violent occupation, as he puts emphasis on the forensic ecologies that emerge here. Focusing on such violent acts, he argues, he aims to highlight the oft-overlooked impact of warfare on more-than-human entities that are affected by or entangled in violence directed at human beings (34). As such he examines the repercussions on various forms of life that are traditionally ignored in anthropocentric studies of violence. These more-than-human entities, to Pugliese, too, stand as subjects deserving of ethical and legal consideration (35). The first two chapters of the book examine in great detail the forensic ecologies resulting from the Israeli occupation and militarization of the Gaza strip, analysing the extensive impact on all forms of life. The chapters explore the concept of zoopolitics as governing the lives of both human and animal subjects. Moreover, the second chapter expands on this by exploring the settler biopolitical practices of ecological destruction as linked with settler colonial expansion, exploring how military campaigns have devastated land, animals, and water. In the third chapter, the focus is on the lethal ramifications of the Guantanamo Bay military prison, and the dehumanization of detainees. Employing a Heideggerian and Agambenian framework, the concept of the “Open” within the prison setting is recontextualized to denote moments of intimate contact between detainees and resident animals, challenging their legal designation as “nonpersons” (35–36). The fourth and final chapter examines the US drone campaigns in the War on Terror, highlighting the war technologies and structural dehumanization through metadata. Moreover, the chapter delves into the anthropocentric hierarchies inherent within the Department of Defence’s drone program and its disruptive impact on conventional delineations between ‘the human’ and ‘the animal,’ thereby also shedding light on the systemic failures to acknowledge responsibility and complicity. 

Traditionally, perpetrator studies have focused primarily on human perpetrators and human victims, but in the last decades, studies of non-human entanglements have emerged. Pugliese’s work challenges the previous anthropocentric perspectives of perpetrator studies, demonstrating that acts of violence cannot be seen as confined to human subjects alone. As such the book provides an interesting and elaborate discussion of violence as impacting environments at large that can proof useful to scholars of perpetrator studies, animal studies, environmental humanities, and political theory.  

It must be noted, however, that Pugliese’s book provides vivid and detailed accounts of violence and descriptions of carnage that are not for the faint of heart. This, alongside its focus on forensic methodologies, dense theoretical language, and conceptual depth may make the text difficult to digest for readers who are not familiar with bio- and necropolitical theory or forensic science, therefore hindering the book’s accessibility.  

Broadening the scope of justice to encompass the more-than-human world, Pugliese brings attention to the ecological consequences of human warfare that would otherwise be overlooked within the realms of biopolitics and law. As such the book can provide valuable insights into structural violence, dehumanization and more-than-human entanglement, as well as questions of complicity, responsibility, surveillance, and ethics. 

Joseph Pugliese is a Professor of Cultural Studies with a focus on critical and cultural theory, postcolonial studies, and social justice, particularly in relation to aspects of state violence, warfare, race, and more-than-human ecologies. He moreover is the winner of the 2022 IHR/ASU Transdisciplinary Humanities Book Award, which was awarded to him on the basis of his research into state violence and de more-than-human. 

Author of this entry: Mohana Zwaga. 

Pugliese, Joseph. Biopolitics of the More-Than-Human: Forensic Ecologies of Violence. Duke University Press, 2020.