Governing Bodies, Controlling Truth: A Foucauldian Analysis of Biopower and Docility in Iftikhar’s Divided Species

Abstract

Living in the intricate landscape of the postmodern world, with multiple truths and realities shaped by authorities, Foucault’s theory of the power & knowledge nexus helps untangle the invisible threads of these realities. Power in Divided Species is not only shown through alien warfare, military command, or the struggle over Hextanlo; it also operates through knowledge, secrecy, surveillance, hierarchy, and the normalization of obedience. This study examines Iftikhar’s Divided Species through a Foucauldian critical lens to explore how power/knowledge dynamics shape social and political relations in the novel. The study focuses on biopower, docile bodies, and normalization, and analyzes the construction and maintenance of power relations through social status, ranks, institutional positions, authority, power structures, and resistance. Using a qualitative research design and thematic analysis, the study interprets selected textual excerpts from the novel in relation to Foucault’s concepts of power/knowledge, discipline, biopower, and normalization. The findings reveal that power in Divided Species is not distributed equally; it is organized hierarchically and sustained through controlled knowledge, technological superiority, secrecy, surveillance, and institutional command. The analysis further shows that bodies and populations are regulated in the name of protection, security, survival, and order. However, the novel also demonstrates that resistance becomes possible when hidden knowledge is exposed and dominant narratives are challenged. This study contributes to Foucauldian literary criticism, Pakistani speculative fiction, and broader debates on authority, social control, and political resistance.

Keywords: biopower, docile body, normalization, power/knowledge, Foucault, Divided Species, Pakistani anglophone fiction, postmodernism.