Fractured head that dissolves

Biopolitical issues and minority groups

This research axis focuses on issues tied to a citizen’s right to dispose of his/her life and body, and to the forms of life and death that trouble existing social, political and economic norms.

Research axis

ur consideration of these biopolitical and necro-political issues aims at better understanding various modalities of interpretation (knowledge, truths) and intervention (policies, laws, technologies) that seek to measure, classify and define the value of life and death. The study of these issues forces us to confront the shift from religious and moral explanations towards secular, often scientific, ways of justifying the power to make live, to let die, or even “make die”.

This research axis is located at the crossroads of various policies, practices and discourses surrounding the rights to life and death. We wish to interrogate the biopolitical and necro-political issues observable in various traces—whether these are found in medical, judicial or police archives, or those collected through interviews and observation. We will pay particular attention to minority groups, for example the francophone minority, and to groups that are minoritized by their histories and living conditions.

Co-directors

  • Isabelle Perreault, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa
  • Dahlia Namian, Associate professor, School of social work, University of Ottawa


Research Associates

  • Alexandre Baril, Associate Professor, School of Social Work, University of Ottawa
  • Emmanuelle Bernheim, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law – Section de droit civil, University of Ottawa
  • Jean-François Cauchie, Associate Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa
  • Patrice Corriveau, Professeur Titulaire, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa
  • Ari Gandsman, Associate Professor, School of Sociological and Anthropological Studies, University of Ottawa
  • Darren O’Toole, Associate Professor, Faculty of Law - Common Law Section and School of Political Studies, University of Ottawa
  • Michèle Diotte, Assistant Professor, Department of Criminology, University of Ottawa