The onto-politics of body counts.
This paper is concerned with a conundrum: the contention that the dead are dehumanized both through body counts and their absence. To understand this paradox we need to excavate who normatively speaking has a life that counts. I advance the idea of countability as a novel explanatory concept to name...
| Publicado en: | Political Studies Vol. 74; no. 3; pp. 1209 - 1230 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Sage Publications Inc.
Aug2026
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ssf&AN=195272932&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: ssf uiTerm: 195272932 longDbName: Social Sciences Full Text (H.W. Wilson) uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00323217 PSZ jtl: Political Studies issn: 00323217 maglogo: Y pubinfo: dt: Aug2026 vid: 74 iid: 3 pid: 344 pub: Sage Publications Inc. artinfo: ui: 195272932 10.1177/00323217251360049 ppf: 1209 ppct: 21 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T db: hlh ui: 195272932 – @attributes: type: P db: hlh ui: 195272932 tig: atl: The onto-politics of body counts. aug: au: Lloyd, Moya affil: University of Essex, Colchester, UK su: Dehumanization Discursive practices Sociology Mortality Grief Human rights sug: subj: Dehumanization Discursive practices Sociology Mortality Grief Human rights keyword: (de)humanization body counts countability grievability orders of grievability (de)humanization body counts countability grievability orders of grievability ab: This paper is concerned with a conundrum: the contention that the dead are dehumanized both through body counts and their absence. To understand this paradox we need to excavate who normatively speaking has a life that counts. I advance the idea of countability as a novel explanatory concept to name the general conditions of possibility, including the ordering of grievability, that underpins acts of counting. Among other things, orders of grievability regulate who enjoys ontological status as fully human. To be eligible for counting an embodied being must first be countable. Furthermore, body counts are performative. They have onto-political effects, organizing and facilitating, reflecting and reiterating, the differential valuation of human lives as well as the distribution of ontological possibilities. The failure or refusal to count has parallel onto-political effects. (De)humanization, however, is not just an issue of whether deaths are counted but, as shown here, how they are counted. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: N holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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