Immunitary Politics

The process of globalization is clearly at a turning point. After an expansionary phase, in which the breaking down of the borders, dictated by the extension of the market on a global scale, appeared to be unstoppable, the long-lasting economic and financial crisis led to a standstill. In Europe, this phenomenon, heightened by the growth of migration flows, is giving rise to “immunitarian” politics. This term refers to the new nationalistic policies, which are based on the fear of contamination by foreign elements, seen as threatening to the cultural identity and the economic health. These policies jeopardise the very European unification process. “Sovereignism” regards the return to the nation-state and to its inviolable borders as the only form of protection against the invasion of the new “barbarians”, and as the only way to escape the unsuccessful austerity measures imposed by Europe in order to deal with the economic crisis. Apart from the regressive character of the sovereignist positions, it is the very character of sovereignty, not only in a political sense, that must be inquired. In particular, the nexus sovereignty-ipseity-identity-membership-territory has to be analyzed, which, since the modern era, underlies what Jacques Derrida called “topolitics”. Only by deconstructing this nexus it will be possible to imagine new forms of citizenship and of planetary cohabitation.