Cuerpo, lugar y discurso; reflexiones en torno a la producción del poder

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis of power as an effect of semiotic processes that involve body, place and discourse. In order to explore how each of these three aspects participate in the process of power production Foucault’s, Bourdieu’s and Sheets-Johnstone’s concept of power is examined. A biological perspective has been incorporated in contrast to the purely linguistic, political and ideological model by which power has been traditionally explained. A distinction between “somato-power” and “political somatography” is proposed to detect significant transformations in this process from zoosemiosis to anthroposemiosis. The role of accumulation (of capitals or knowledge) is an indispensable clue to understand this transformation of animal power into the socio-institutional, since it generates a body-other, a collective mega body, penetrating places and discourses towards the reproduction and naturalization of these effects.