necropower

English

Etymology

From necro- +‎ power.

Noun

necropower (uncountable)

1. Power over life and death, or over deadly activities and products such as assassination, weapons, the death penalty, etc.
   • 2011, Steven Tötösy de Zepetnek, Louise Olga Vasvári, Comparative Hungarian Cultural Studies, page 281:

     The portrayal in Kontroll of the underground space of the Budapest subway system as a site of potential resistance against the multiple manifestations of necropower, […]

   • 2011, David Farrier, Postcolonial Asylum: Seeking Sanctuary Before the Law, page 68:

     Exposure to the gorgoneion exposes the viewer to necropower; in the context of asylum the visibility of the asylum seeker thus potentially exposes the complicity of the normal situation in necropower.

   • 2017, Kenneth Omeje, The Crises of Postcoloniality in Africa, page 218:

     In wielding this necropower the ultimate site of deployment of this new form of sovereignty is no longer the body as such, but the dead body of the African civilian.

Related terms

• biopower
• necropolitics