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A review by garberdog
Beyond the Periphery of the Skin: Rethinking, Remaking, and Reclaiming the Body in Contemporary Capitalism by Silvia Federici
3.0
Easily the most disappointing of Federici’s usually excellent work I’ve read. This book is very vaguely organized around the theme of “body politics,” but it’s often unclear what Federici means by this or what’s at stake for her.
As with her other recent work, she evinces a strange and poorly reasoned technophobia. She valorizes the body and the natural world against technology, to the point where she says some almost transphobic things and condemns modern medicine. Surely there is a difference between accurately acknowledging the complicity of modern medicine and technology with capitalism and oppression and veering off into a total rejection of modernity.
Also out of place is a weird anti-surrogacy essay that is at odds with Federici’s own much more nuanced understanding of sex work politics. Surely, if sex workers can be understood as complex political agents capable of advocating for their own interests, the same can be said of surrogates. Again, there is a valorization of “natural” pregnancy and maternity against the supposedly “unnatural” character of surrogacy.
There are some truly great essays in this book that save it from being a total loss. But this is a far cry from “Caliban and the Witch” or “Revolution at Point Zero.”
As with her other recent work, she evinces a strange and poorly reasoned technophobia. She valorizes the body and the natural world against technology, to the point where she says some almost transphobic things and condemns modern medicine. Surely there is a difference between accurately acknowledging the complicity of modern medicine and technology with capitalism and oppression and veering off into a total rejection of modernity.
Also out of place is a weird anti-surrogacy essay that is at odds with Federici’s own much more nuanced understanding of sex work politics. Surely, if sex workers can be understood as complex political agents capable of advocating for their own interests, the same can be said of surrogates. Again, there is a valorization of “natural” pregnancy and maternity against the supposedly “unnatural” character of surrogacy.
There are some truly great essays in this book that save it from being a total loss. But this is a far cry from “Caliban and the Witch” or “Revolution at Point Zero.”