Apocalypse and the Biopolitics of Childhood

The article urges for further attention to representations of childhood in (post-)apocalyptic fictions from the perspective of biopolitical theory, by focusing on two recent television series, Utopia (UK, Channel 4, 2013-15) and The 100 (US, The CW, 2014-present). The apocalypse is discussed as a quintessentially biopolitical narrative about the extinction or survival of humanity. Representations of children as the future of the species are seen as indebted to developmental discourses permeated by biopower. Accordingly, the ‘end’ is staged as the disruption of these discourses that construct childhood as a stage that leads from innocence to experience, from vulnerability to security and from recklessness to maturity.