Gobernar por los cuerpos, políticas de reconocimiento hacia los pobres y los inmigrantes en Francia

Abstract

During the recent years, social sciences have developed interest in the body, considering it as a social reality, a result of a historical construction and a product of cultural representations, but the political uses of the body have been relatively neglected. On the basis of two case-studies recently conducted in France, one on the distribution of subsidies to job-seekers, the other one on the legalization of undocumented immigrants for humanitarian reasons, the present paper analyzes the way in which the body becomes a resource for the claim of a right, justified by disease or suffering. These examples give clues for the comprehension of the moral economy of illegitimacy and the foundations for a political anthropology of the body.