Core Publications

Barla, J., Kluzik, V., & Lemke, T. (eds.) (2022). Biokapital. Beiträge zur Kritik der politischen Ökonomie des Lebens. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.

Barla, J., & Trischler, R. (2022). Neomaterialistische Techniksoziologien – Potenziale, Spannungen und Desiderata. Behemoth: A Journal on Civilisation, 15 (1).

Barla, J. (2022). Rück-kehren als antworten: Technik, ‚Race‘ und das gespenstische Erbe von Materialisierungen. Behemoth: A Journal on Civilisation, 15 (1).

Barla, J., & Bjork-James, S. (2022). Introduction: entanglements of anti-feminism and anti-environmentalism in the far-right. Australian Feminist Studies, 36 (110), 377-387.

Barla, J., & Bjork-James, S. (2022). A climate of misogyny: gender, politics of ignorance, and climate change denial – an interview with Katharine Hayhoe. Australian Feminist Studies, 36 (110), 388-395.

Barla, J. (2019). The Techno-Apparatus of Bodily Production. A New Materialist Theory of Technology and the Body. Bielefeld: transcript.

Barla, J., & Hubatschke, C. (2018). Technoecologies of borders: thinking with borders as multispecies matters of care. Australian Feminist Studies 32 (94): 395-410.

Barla, J. (2016). Technologies of failure, bodies of resistance: science, technology, and the mechanics of materializing marked bodies. In Pitts-Taylor, V. (ed.), Mattering: Feminism, Science and Materialism. New York: New York University Press, 159-172.

Barla, J. (2016). Verschränkungen von Gewicht: Von Verbindungen zu Un/Bestimmtheiten. In Harrasser, K. & Rößinger, S. (eds.), Neue Perspektiven auf das Leben mit Technik, Schriften des Deutschen Hygiene-Museums Dresden. Köln: Böhlau, S. 164-173.

 
Most recent

Barla, J., Lorenz-Meyer, D., & Hinton, P. (2024). Provocations of new materialisms at the crossroads of the natural and human sciences. In van der Tuin, I. & Colman, F. (eds.), Methods and Genealogies of New Materialisms. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, S. 139-151.

Barla, J., Lorenz-Meyer, D., & Hinton, P. (2024). Curated panel: ‘New materialisms across the natural sciences and humanities: Trajectories, inspirations, and stirrings’. In: van der Tuin, I. & Colman, F. (eds.), Methods and Genealogies of New Materialisms. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, S. 212-238.

Barla, J. (2023). Technologies of antiblackness: Black matter, racial bias, and the haunting past of the spirometer, Technology and Society 73.

Barla, J. (2023). Beyond reflexivity and representation: diffraction as a methodological sensitivity in science studies, Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory, 24 (3), 444-466.

Barla, J., Hartmann, V., & von Verschuer, F. (2023). De/Koloniale Ordnungen des Lebens. In Hoppe, K., Rüppel, J., von Verschuer, F., & Voigt T. H. (eds.), Leben Regieren: Natur, Technologie und Gesellschaft im 21. Jahrhundert. Frankfurt am Main: Campus, S. 37-54.

Barla, J. (2023). Natur, Mensch und Gesellschaft im Anthropozän. Auf dem Weg zu einer mehr-als-menschlichen Soziologie?, Soziologische Revue 46 (1): 1-15.

Ensuring public health through mobilizing death: Expectations as future-making practices in the bioeconomy of transgenic mosquitoes (Az. 20.21.0.010SO, 1/10-09/2023, Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung)

Mosquito-borne diseases such as the Zika virus and malaria are increasing dramatically word wide. As traditional methods of vector control prove to be little effective and often harmful to local ecosystems, new approaches are sought for tackling this public health crisis. Amongst the most promising ones are genetic strategies which use the mosquitoes’ own biology and reproductive capabilities against themselves. These approaches not only turn the mosquitoes into a public health tool but also promise the large-scale eradication of mosquito-borne disease.

Starting from the hypothesis that rather than only commodifying the vital processes of ‘life itself’ (Franklin; Rose), death and eradication is inscribed into the mosquitoes’ genetic code in order to ensure public health, the aim of my research is twofold: First, I explore the role of expectations as future-making practices in the bioeconomy of transgenic mosquitoes through which not only ‘speculative value’ (Sunder Rajan) is generated but also particular futures made present at the exclusion of others. Second, I argue that these novel genetic strategies mark a broader shift in molecular genetics from the production of ‘biovalue’ (Waldby) to what I will call ‘necrovalue’—that is, the technoscientific mobilization and economization of death itself as that which entails value.