A Vast Accumulation of Corpses: Necropolitics - Blood Work
A Vast Accumulation of Corpses: Necropolitics
Source: Blood Work, which is a weekly podcast that examines the “economy of violence” and political history. More from Blood Work can be found here and here.
Date of Publication: August 18, 2026
Summary (paraphrasing Blood Work): Blood Work takes another dive into the theory zone, looking at Cameroonian postcolonial thinker Achille Mbembe’s seminal 2003 essay on the production of death as the crowning political activity of our era. The preview of the podcast, available to anyone, is 28 minutes and 14 seconds long, and can be listened to here. The entire podcast, for those with paid subscriptions, is 2 hours and 6 seconds long.
Image: Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics (2019), Duke University Press.
Why ISSE Is Recommending This Podcast: Achille Mbembe's concept of necropolitics has become one of the most influential contemporary frameworks for understanding how sovereignty, violence, and exceptional power intersect. Drawing on—and critically engaging with—the work of Carl Schmitt, Michel Foucault, and Giorgio Agamben, Mbembe argues that sovereign authority is revealed not only through the suspension of law, but also through the power to determine which lives are protected, which are exposed to violence, and which become politically disposable. While ISSE approaches these questions primarily through the legal and institutional dimensions of emergency powers, constitutional governance, and the rule of law, necropolitics provides an important complementary lens for examining the human consequences of exceptional governance. Whether or not readers ultimately agree with Mbembe's conclusions, his work has become an essential reference point in contemporary debates about emergency powers, security, colonialism, armed conflict, and the evolving relationship between sovereignty and political violence.
