Spheres of Insurrection

As the globalized regime of neoliberal capitalism consolidates its grip on the world, it refines the micropolitics proper to the capitalist system and makes it more perverse. This micropolitics involves the appropriation ¿ what Suely Rolnik calls the ¿pimping¿ ¿ of life, as it turns the life drive itself away from creation and cooperation and towards the deadening, destructive practice necessary for capital accumulation. This dynamic is the engine of what Rolnik calls the colonial-capitalistic unconscious regime. She also identifies the conditions necessary to fight against this regime ¿ namely, a reappropriation of the life drive, the energetic basis at the heart of all life forms, human life included, and the principal source of extraction for capitalism.

Drawing on examples from across the Americas, including Brazil and the United States, Rolnik examines the circumstances that have given rise to regressive, reactionary governments throughout the world. These circumstances i