Men's violence,men's parenting and gender politics in Sweden

In this article, I discuss how the politics of survival in the science fiction TV series “Battlestar Galactica” (BSG) correspond to contemporary biopolitics in late modern Western society. BSG takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where war between artificial, non-human bodies and organic, human bodies emphasizes the importance of sustained population growth and, ultimately, survival for the human race. The BSG survival narrative accentuates the challenges that advanced reproductive technologies pose to the female body and how this is interrelated to state regulation of reproduction and population control. As a political fiction, BSG facilitates a discussion of the dynamics of choice and duty in relation to post-human reproduction: the right to choose not to reproduce as well as the right to reproduce. In light of my analysis, I suggest that the BSG survival narrative concludes with a displacement of discourses of choice onto discourses of obligation due to biotechnological advancement. I posit that BSG's endorsement of post-human reproduction, coupled with a pro-natalist approach to population control, represents post-human reproduction as an evolutionary advancement the female body cannot refuse. As such, the BSG survival narrative reinscribes gender as a category of difference and the link between the female body and reproduction as key norms for late modern societies.

“I'm not a commodity, I'm a Viper pilot”

Starbuck, BSG 205: The Farm