José María Arguedas and political theory: reflections on animality and contact

Abstract

This article analyzes the performance of political community constructed in José María Arguedas’ last novel, The Fox from Up Above and the Fox from Down Below. By establishing a dialogue between the ideas in the novel and the political theories of Aristotle, Achille Mbembe, Giorgio Agamben and Karl Marx, I argue that a conception of political interaction that focuses on expropriated life as the point of contact between people, animals and machines permits a revision of theories of biopolitics.