Governing the Pandemic: Biopolitics, Governmentality, and Calculative Technologies in Malaysia

Covid-19 is a very delicate pandemic that intertwined material, economic, social, and political conundrums altogether. Not only it has compromised our basic standards on how we distinct and connect to each other, but it has almost shattered the distinction between individual and community. This paper examines the use of calculative technologies as deployed by the Malaysian government as instruments to govern its citizens during the pandemic. While most of the present literature looked at these instruments as the ultimate tools to flatten the curve, they ignore the power relation between these calculative technologies and the people based on biopolitics. It was used to coerce the population to live their lives under certain specific COVID-19 guidelines. Such efforts by the Malaysian government demonstrated how authorities enforced calculative technology throughout the epidemic and how the pandemic’s governance differs in terms of biopolitics. The way the government emphasize the pandemic through its calculative technologies has been demanding. Such approaches of practising social distancing, wearing a mask, self-quarantine among others show that the authority obliged their citizen to be the target and subjected to these approaches and measures in their daily lives; which put them under the authority of governmentality.

COVID-19, Malaysia, biopolitics, calculative technologies, governmentality

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