A Zone of Death: Ballardian Necropolitical Sovereignty in Concrete Island
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Date
2025-07
Authors
Özçelik, Kaya
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
RumeliYa
Abstract
This study focuses on J.G. Ballard’s Concrete Island (1974) through the theoretical lens of necropolitics defined by Achille Mbembe to analyse the abandonment and exclusion of certain lives within the infrastructural settings of late modernity. Centring on the protagonist Robert Maitland, stranded in an abandoned interstice of a London motorway - an island within a hyperfunctioning urban framework, the novel details the bitter struggles of an individual to survive. His descent into an utter physical deterioration and psychological disintegration depicts a necropolitical rationale in which the system of the state and its technological mechanisms determine not only who is entitled to live, but more crucially, who can be permitted to die. In this context, this study posits that the motorway island in the novel portrays a necropolitical zone as an uncontrollable space that partially exists within and outside the urban framework, where normative protections and social acknowledgements are put on hold. It is through this marginalisation that Ballard also criticises the immunitarian structures of neoliberal urbanism. Through this spatial marginalisation, Ballard critiques the immunitarian structures of neoliberal urbanism, which prioritise speed, efficiency, and visibility, while transforming certain bodies and lives into throwaways. Putting Maitland’s ongoing dehumanisation process in front of the eyes of the reader, Ballard illustrates how sophisticated infrastructure leads to a desolate environment with human detritus, reminding the reader of Mbembe’s claim that the ultimate expression of sovereign power is verified in its capacity to determine the individuals who are allowed to continue living and who are not. Building on Roberto Esposito’s immunitary paradigm and urban biopolitical theory, this study explores Ballard’s Concrete Island within the contemporary discussions focusing on urban isolation, social exclusion, and the politics of violence regarding the fast-developing modern world.
Description
Keywords
Necropolitics , biopolitics , spatial inclusion , urban liminality , immunitary violence
Citation
Özçelik, K. (2025). A Zone of Death: Ballardian Necropolitical Sovereignty in Concrete Island. Y. Yılmaz (Ed.), IX. Uluslararası Rumeli [Dil, Edebiyat, Çeviri] Sempozyumu içinde (19. ss.). İstanbul: RumeliYa.
