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#biopolitics — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #biopolitics, aggregated by home.social.

  1. Making hostile spaces The dispersal of non consumers

    * At an intersection of numerous car parks, retail industry and an amusement industrial complex in Coffs Harbour there is a small green space with benches and birds. People and birds rest there and have their lunch.

    Some time ago the amusement & drink giant piped ongoing unpleasant, loud music over the small green island and the abundant car parks.

    The intention of the outdoor speakers distributing noise pollution is/was to engage in then 'dispersal' of ‘loitering' non customers.

    This loud and repetitive ‘music’ is also known as "aggressive" or "defensive" architecture. This design in mostly public spaces is intended as a form of 'organised abandonment' (Ruth Wilson Gilmore) of the poor and the unhoused.

    Often the exclusionary design acoustic ('steady-state spam’) is combined with other anti homeless devices (anti-homeless spikes furniture) which function to keep members of the public out of public spaces.

    With increasing inequality, that is non spending consumers, the system is increasingly employing hostile practices. Privately owned public spaces such as walkways, plazas, arcades and small parks have to ensure the safety of their customers and staff. Non-consumers have no place in this scheme.

    * "Woolworths has installed outdoor speakers at its Darwin city store to play the supermarket's 'Fresh Food People' jingle on repeat in a bid to deter loitering.” >>
    abc.net.au/news/2026-08-25/dar
    * "The NSW Police Force is currently running an Australian-first trial in Moree (an area with a high Indigenous population) using rooftop drones to "fight crime" in the area, controlled by people hundreds of kilometres away at Bankstown Airport." >>
    abc.net.au/news/2026-08-26/aut
    #HostileArchitecture #PublicSpaces #inequality #privatisation #ShoppingCentres #dispersal #FirstNationsPeoples #biopolitics #surveillance #CCTV #PervasiveTechnologies #UAVs #NoisePollution #IndigenousPeoples #DesignApartheid #governance #CoffsHarbour

  2. " There is a crack, a crack in everything
    That's how the light gets in."

    Leonard Cohen,1992, Anthem song

    “He was just somebody who fell through all the cracks..."

    A young man who came to Australia to study computer science died in the bushes near the bustling tunnel entrance to Sydney’s St James station. "Roughly 100,000 people went in or out of St James station during the time ..."
    >>
    theguardian.com/australia-news
    #biopolitics #Sydney #education #housing #visas #homelessness #VulnerableHomelessness #precarity #cracks #SystemicFailures

  3. "Capitalism and extreme poverty: A global analysis of real wages, human height, and mortality since the long 16th century
    […]
    • Data on real wages suggests that, historically, extreme poverty was uncommon and arose primarily during periods of severe social and economic dislocation, particularly under colonialism.
    • The rise of capitalism from the long 16th century onward is associated with a decline in wages to below subsistence, a deterioration in human stature, and an upturn in premature mortality.
    • In parts of South Asia, sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America, wages and/or height have still not recovered."

    Sullivan, Hickel, 2022 : sciencedirect.com/science/arti

    @histodons 🧶

    #progress #appropriation #enclosures #landGrab #economics #property #theft #capitalism #power #ownership #stateViolence #slavery #capitalization #history #anthropology #bioPower #bioPolitics #reputation #domination #beliefs #manufacturingConsent #whiteSupremacy #India #colonialism #BritishRule #BritishIndia #BritishEmpire #UK #Britain