Introduction: From Autonomism to Post-Autonomia, from Class Composition to a New Political Anthropology?

Abstract

This introduction critically addresses the historical development of operaismo/autonomism into “postautonomist” thinking. First, it argues that the very history of postautonomism allows for criticizing the notion of the “history” (or lack thereof) of theorists associated with postautonomist Marxism, such as Antonio Negri. It argues that the “all-or-nothing” characteristic of autonomism lives on in postautonomist theory's denial of mediation (Negri, Berardi), which in fact falls short because of it. Current developments within postautonomist theory, however, offer an alternative to this bipolar logic by redefining notions of subjectivity (Virno, Pasquinelli). The emphasis in this strand of postautonomism given to bio- and anthropo-politics—a new political anthropology –implies a new form of (academic) knowledge production, performed by what Jack Bratich calls the “machinic intellectual.” In this sense, postautononism in fact urges the rethinking of the very idea of the “autonomy” of “self-valorization.”