Entre el derecho y la utilidad:  el nuevo reglamento de extranjería de España como dispositivo biopolítico: Between law and utility: Spain's new immigration regulations as a biopolitical device

Diana Marcela Pérez Bolaños

doi:10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.25

Authors

Diana Marcela Pérez Bolaños Profesora

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12795/araucaria.2025.i59.25

Keywords:

migration, law, device, biopolitics

Abstract

This article proposes a philosophical analysis of Spain's new immigration regulations, approved by Royal Decree 1155/2024 of November 19, 2024, as a biopolitical device. This analysis begins with a documentary review of the regulations governing the integration of immigrants in Spain and moves from a legal analysis to a philosophical study framed within the theoretical and conceptual framework of biopolitics proposed by Achille Mbembe, Didier Fassin, and Roberto Esposito. Methodologically, it proposes a dialogue between the regulations on immigration management in Spain and the theory of the governance of life. The study argues that Spain's new immigration regulations institutionalize the categories of useful/useless foreigners based on a differential management of life grounded in utilitarian calculations, both quantifiable and moralized, through which it is decided who deserves to live and who should legally die in migration management.

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