Beyond the Periphery of the Skin

More than ever, the 'body' is today at the centre of radical and institutional politics. Feminist, antiracist, trans and ecological movementsall look at the body as a ground of confrontation with the state and a vehicle for transformative social practices. Concurrently, the body has become a signifier for the reproduction crisis the neoliberal turn in capitalist development has generated and for the international surge in institutional repression and public violence. Here, Silvia Federici examines these complex processes, placing them in the context of the history of the capitalist transformation of the body into a work-machine.