New legal technologies in family life production: Anthopology, law and subjectivation

Abstract

In this article, we explore the possible dialogue between legal anthropology and the theory of biopolitics. We formulate our contribution on the basis of research on the uses of DNA technology in paternity investigations carried out in different spaces of the Rio Grande do Sul judicial system. Ethnographic observations in these institutional settings help us to understand how certain situations produce (reinforcing or modifying) sentiments associated with family life. After presenting an initial ethnographic scene through which we mean to give color and life to the subjects who populate the courtrooms, we follow an agenda traced out by Rabinow and Rose (2006), in order to throw light on the chain of influences between new forms of knowledge, shifting hierarchies of power, and new “modes of subjectivation”.