Spatial Governmentality of Moscow Parks as Biopolitical and Biocultural Identity Construction

Abstract

This article studies the spatial governmentality of Moscow parks and the way it contributes to the biopolitical construction of identity. Mapped on the Foucauldian notion of governmentality, this research investigates how spaces rather than people are governed to produce self-governing subjectivities and, thereby, social order. It argues that the governing of spaces based on inclusion / exclusion techniques fosters the circulation of some behaviours while obscures the others as threatening the creation of safe spaces for the included subjects. Invoking the municipal rules of behaviour at parks, we elaborate on the included / excluded activities to demonstrate the ways that the knowledge produced through the regulation of parks informs the bodily conduct of the individuals, producing subjectivities who regulate their freedom in a state-­controlled way. The technique of including health-­cautious self-governing subjects fosters people’s behaviour in alignment with biopolitical objectives of the state to produce a healthy race and economically efficient human capital. At the same time, the spatial governmentality of parks problematizes some activities to produce a securitized space through the exclusionary mechanism of removing the unwanted or health threatening behaviour. This kind of securitization increases the risk of exclusion from the spaces for certain behaviours. As a result of this process, the spatial governmentality of parks provides a common biological and cultural ground based on which the subjects govern their conduct. Common culture of managing physical issues constructs biocultural identity as it produces a sense of 'us' and the outcast 'others,' bonding the group with a homogenous behaviour as a nation.