Biometrics: The Remediation of Measure

Abstract

This book is about the biopolitics of biometrics. Its first chapter will, therefore, address these two components as a way of laying the ground for the remaining chapters and explicating the key theoretical framework that underlies this project. The first section of the chapter is primarily concerned with defining ‘biometrics’. Instead of limiting the term to its technical definitions, this section proceeds by placing biometrics within a historical context and highlighting some of its genealogical referents that have also been historically involved in measuring the body for identification purposes. The second section of the chapter turns the discussion towards the concept of ‘biopolitics’. It provides a critical overview on the origin and development of this concept with particular reference to the works of Michel Foucault, Giorgio Agamben and Nikolas Rose whose different accounts inform much of the internal workings and theoretical framework of this book.