From Foucauldian Biopower to Energopower and Infopower: An Interview with Dominic Boyer and Colin Koopman

Kirsten Hasberg talks to Dominic Boyer, anthropologist and author of Energopolitics: Wind and Power in the Anthroprocene, and to Colin Koopman, philosopher and author of How We Became our Data: A Genealogy of the Informational Person. Their books published in mid-2019 put forward novel conceptualizations of Foucauldian biopower, which they term infopower and energopower, respectively. Criss-crossing between philosophical conceptualizations and concrete problems like the struggles of renewable energy communities (Boyer) and the influence of economic thinking on datafication (Koopman), the conversations show how Foucauldian concepts are relevant to today's power struggles inherent to the energy transition and the digital transformation.