MOLEKÜLER DÜZEYDE YAŞAM YÖNETİMİ: ANNALEE NEWITZ’İN AUTONOMOUS ROMANINDA BİYOSERMAYE VE ÖZNELLİK POLİTİKALARI

Abstract

Bu makale, Annalee Newitz’in Autonomous (2017) adlı eserini Nikolas Rose’un moleküler biyopolitika kavramı üzerinden ele alarak, romanın biyoteknolojik rejimde biyokapital ve öznellik tartışmalarına katkısını inceler. Yakın gelecekte geçen anlatı, yaşam kurtarıcı ilaçların yüksek bedellerle patentlenmesi ve küresel ekonominin ilaç şirketleri tarafından belirlenmesi üzerine kuruludur. Kurgu, sistemi ihlal ederek değiştirilmiş ilaçları dolaşıma sokan bilim insanı Jack ile, gelişen öz farkındalığı üzerinden özgürlük, mülkiyet ve özerklik kavramlarını sorgulayan askeri robot Paladin etrafında ilerler. Çalışma, Rose’un molekülerleşme, optimizasyon, özneleştirme, uzmanlık ve biyoekonomi kavramlarını temel alır ve yaşamın moleküler düzeyde yönetildiği bir düzeni tartışır. Roman, patentli ilaçlar, tasarlanmış duygulanım biçimleri ve yapay varlıklar aracılığıyla bu yapıyı somutlaştırır; yaşamın ekonomik değere indirgenişini ve öznelliğin biyokapitalist sistemler içinde düzenlenişini açık biçimde ortaya koyar. Jack’in Zacuity’ye müdahalesi ile Paladin’in benlik arayışı, öznelliğin bağımsız bir özellik olmadığını, bu sistemler içinde üretildiğini ve sınırlandığını gösterir. Bu çerçevede makale, öznelliği insan, teknoloji ve biyolojik süreçler arasındaki ilişkiler içinde yeniden düşünür ve bu dönüşümü açıklamak üzere “sentetik moleküler öznellik” kavramını önerir. Autonomous, böylece moleküler biyopolitikayı yaşamı, emeği ve öznelliği düzenleyen, aynı zamanda sınırlı direniş imkanları barındıran bir yapı olarak ortaya koyar.

Keywords

• Öznellik
• Autonomous
• Biyokapital
• Moleküler Biyopolitika
• Spekülatif Roman

GOVERNING LIFE AT THE MOLECULAR LEVEL: BIOCAPITAL AND THE POLITICS OF AGENCY IN ANNALEE NEWITZ’S AUTONOMOUS

Abstract

This article examines Annalee Newitz’s Autonomous (2017) through Nikolas Rose’s concept of molecular biopolitics, focusing on the novel’s contribution to debates on biocapital and subjectivity within a biotechnological regime. Set in the near future, the narrative is structured around the patenting of life saving drugs at high cost and the dominance of pharmaceutical corporations over the global economy. It follows Jack, a scientist who disrupts this system by recirculating modified drugs, and Paladin, a military robot whose emerging self-awareness prompts questions of freedom, ownership, and autonomy. The study employs Rose’s key concepts of molecularization, optimization, subjectification, expertise, and bioeconomy to frame a mode of governance in which life is regulated at the molecular level. The novel articulates this structure through patented pharmaceuticals, engineered affect, and artificial beings, exposing how life is reduced to economic value and how subjectivity is organized within biocapitalist systems. Jack’s intervention in the productivity drug Zacuity and Paladin’s search for selfhood demonstrate that subjectivity is neither autonomous nor inherent, but produced and constrained within these systems. In this context, the article reconsiders subjectivity through the relations between human, technological, and biological processes and proposes the concept of synthetic molecular subjectivity to account for its reconfiguration. Autonomous thus presents molecular biopolitics as a system that regulates life, labour, and subjectivity, while still containing limited possibilities for resistance.

Keywords

• Agency
• Autonomous
• Biocapital
• Molecular Biopolitics
• Speculative Novel

References

1. Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Polity Press.
2. Cooper, M. (2008). Life as surplus: Biotechnology and capitalism in the neoliberal era. University of Washington Press.
3. Foucault, M. (1977). Discipline and punish: The birth of the prison (A. Sheridan, Trans.). Vintage Books. (Original work published 1975)
4. Foucault, M. (1978). The history of sexuality: Vol. 1. An introduction (R. Hurley, Trans.). Pantheon Books.
5. Foucault, M. (2003). "Society must be defended": Lectures at the Collège de France, 1975–76 (D. Macey, Trans.). Picador.
6. Haraway, D. J. (2016). Staying with the trouble: Making kin in the Chthulucene. Duke University Press.
7. Hogle, L. F. (2005). Enhancement technologies and the body. Annual Review of Anthropology, *34*, 695–716. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.anthro.33.070203.144020
8. Larrodera-Arcega, L. (2025). Indenture rights for all: Challenging the human status quo in Annalee Newitz's Autonomous. In M. Ferrández-Sanmiguel, E. Muñoz-González, & C. Laguarta-Bueno (Eds.), The posthuman condition in 21st century literature and culture. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-83701-2_5

9. Al-Maamouri, A., & Husain, F. R. (2025). The ethics of transhumanism in Annalee Newitz's Autonomous. Journal of the College of Languages, *52*, 133–154. https://doi.org/10.36586/jcl.2.2025.0.52.0133
10. Makhdum, S. J., & Qasim Shafiq, D. (2025). Techno subjectivities: The politics of cyborg-cyber feminist resistance in Annalee Newitz's Autonomous. Dialogue Social Science Review (DSSR), *3*(7), 137–155. https://dialoguessr.com/index.php/2/article/view/649
11. Newitz, A. (2017). Autonomous. Tor, A Tom Doherty Associates Book.
12. Novas, C. (2006). The political economy of hope: Patients' organizations, science, and biovalue. BioSocieties, *1*(3), 289–305.
13. Rajan, K. S. (2006). Biocapital: The constitution of postgenomic life. Duke University Press.
14. Roberts, D. (2011). Fatal invention: How science, politics, and big business re-create race in the twenty-first century. The New Press.
15. Rose, N. (2007a). Molecular biopolitics, somatic ethics and the spirit of biocapital. Social Theory & Health, *5*(1), 3–29.
16. Rose, N. (2007b). The politics of life itself: Biomedicine, power, and subjectivity in the twenty-first century. Princeton University Press.
17. Rose, N., & Novas, C. (2005). Biological citizenship. In A. Ong & S. J. Collier (Eds.), Global assemblages: Technology, politics, and ethics as anthropological problems (pp. 439–463). Blackwell Publishing.
18. Vint, S. (2021). Biopolitical futures in twenty-first-century speculative fiction. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108979382
19. Wald, P. (2008). Contagious: Cultures, carriers, and the outbreak narrative. Duke University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv11sms36
20. Waldby, C., & Mitchell, R. (2006). Tissue economies: Blood, organs, and cell lines in late capitalism. Duke University Press.