Politics of the Living Dead: Race and Exceptionalism in the Apocalypse
| Author | Stefanie Fishel,Lauren Wilcox |
| Date | 01 June 2017 |
| Published date | 01 June 2017 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0305829817712819 |
| Subject Matter | Conference Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/0305829817712819
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2017, Vol. 45(3) 335 –355
© The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829817712819
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Politics of the Living Dead:
Race and Exceptionalism
in the Apocalypse
Stefanie Fishel
University of Alabama, USA
Lauren Wilcox
University of Cambridge, UK
Abstract
The zombie, as a Western pop culture icon, has taken up residence in International Relations.
Used both humorously and as a serious teaching tool, many scholars and professors of IR have
written of the zombie as a useful figure for teaching IR theory in an engaging manner, and have used
zombie outbreaks to analyse the responses of the international community during catastrophe,
invasion, and natural disasters. The authors of this article would like to unearth another aspect of
the zombie that is often left unsaid or forgotten: namely, that the body of the zombie, as a historical
phenomenon and cultural icon, is deeply imbricated in the racialisation of political subjects and fear
of the Other. Through a critical analysis of biopower and race, and in particular Weheliye’s concept
of habeas viscus, we suggest that the figure of the zombie can be read as a racialised figure that can
provide the means for rethinking the relationship of the discipline of IR to the concept of race. We
read The Walking Dead as a zombie narrative that could provide a critical basis for rethinking the
concepts of bare life and the exception to consider ‘living on’ in apocalyptic times.
Keywords
zombie, race, biopolitics
Introduction
Popular culture often suggests modes for understanding politics in new and productive ways.
Media and cultural studies demonstrate that movies, television, music, poetry, fiction and art
can bare our fears and hopes in easily understood forms and offer wisdom in digestible sound
Corresponding author:
Lauren Wilcox, University of Cambridge, Alison Richard Building, Cambridge, CB3 9DT, UK.
Email: Lw487@cam.ac.uk
712819MIL0010.1177/0305829817712819Millennium: Journal of International StudiesFishel and Wilcox
research-article2017
Conference Article
336 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 45(3)
1. Cynthia Weber, International Relations Theory: A Critical Introduction (London: Routledge,
2004); Kyle Grayson, Matt Davies, and Simon Philpott, ‘Pop Goes IR? Researching the
Popular Culture – World Politics Continuum’, Politics 26, no. 3 (2009): 155–63; Federica
Caso and Caitlin Hamilton, eds., Popular Culture and World Politics: Theories, Methods,
Pedagogies (Bristol: e-International Relations Publishing, 2015); Christine Sylvester, Art/
Museums: International Relations Where We Least Expect It (London: Routledge, 2015);
Laura J. Shepherd and Caitlin Hamilton eds., Understanding Popular Culture and World
Politics in the Digital Age (London: Routledge, 2016).
2. Charli Carpenter, ‘Rethinking the Political/-Science-/Fiction Nexus: Global Policy Making
and the Campaign to Stop Killer Robots’, Perspectives on Politics 14, no. 1 (2016): 53–69.
3. Eric Boyer, ‘Zombies All! The Janus-Faced Zombie of the Twenty-First Century’, Journal of
Popular Culture 47, no. 6 (2014): 1139–52.
4. Through movies and television, the zombie narrative is also taken to reveal a deep-seated anxi-
ety about capitalism and consumerism (Dawn of the Living Dead), a post 9-11 fear of conta-
gion and immigration (28 Days Later, Resident Evil, World War Z), and a post-post 9-11 where
society must reckon with the horrors that came previously and reincorporate this violence into
society – or what is left of it (In the Flesh, Wyrmwood), and a ‘redemptive’ genre where we
learn to live with the Other (Warm Bodies). There are also comic takes on the zombie genre that
critique and pay homage to many of these themes (Fido, Shaun of the Dead, A Scout’s Guide to
the Zombie Apocalypse, Zombieland, Boy Eats Girl, and Pride, Prejudice and Zombies).
5. Sarah Juliet Lauro, and Karen Embry, ‘A Zombie Manifesto: The Nonhuman Condition in the
Era of Advanced Capitalism’, boundary 2 35, no. 1 (2008): 85–108.
bites. International Relations (IR) scholarship has incorporated these fields of study and
approaches into its canon as well.1 This article uses this literature as background to analyse
another pop culture figure – the zombie – as a productive metaphor to understand race, gen-
der, and power in IR. The use of zombies in the classroom for simulations, and as a tool for
teaching theory, all reflect the fact that cultural memes are effective in reaching students and
policy communities. As Charli Carpenter asserts, the role of science fiction and fantasy dis-
course can act to deflect disagreement in ‘divergent and highly contested policy communi-
ties’2 and allows for more communication on important, emotionally charged issues.
Broadly, through historical and pop culture narratives, and as evidenced by its staying
power in movies and fiction, the zombie holds a special place in contemporary theorising
about life and death in modern politics: it is an enduring icon which encompasses and
embodies our political and social fears – ‘they are a surface upon which humanity reflects
anxieties’.3 The zombie speaks, through its search and hunger for living flesh, to humanity’s
fears about contagion, disease, death, and loss of control. This undead figure reminds us of
all that is repressed in our political and economic orders: the monstrous aspects of neoliberal
capitalism, the emptiness of consumerism, the disposability of people, and our reckless use
of earth’s finite resources.4 Our destruction is assured by this violent consumption of natural
resources and lives and the repressed will return with a vengeance and unending hunger for
what we have taken. Sarah Juliet Lauro and Karen Embry in ‘A Zombie Manifesto’ posit the
zombie as that which crashes borders, and as a figure who threatens in its endless appetite to
consume and transform humanity.5 As they note, the zombie is not dead, nor alive, such that
contemplating this figure would push us to think about not just a biopolitics of life or a nec-
ropolitics of death, but rather of the grey areas in between.
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