On the Example: The Need for a Complementary Contraposition to Giorgio Agamben’s Theorization of the Exception

Giorgio Agamben’s theorization of the exception marks a shift in geographical scholarship and other social sciences. I argue, however, that although equally crucial, the example remains a surprisingly understudied phenomenon even though Agamben views it as the symmetrical opposite of the exception. I thus push forward Agamben’s theorization of the sovereign not only through a reading of the exception but also the example. The provocation of the article, and its key contribution to knowledge, is to step back from the point where Agamben positions these two as indistinguishable and to clearly distinguish between them—simultaneously marking a shift in the current scholarship of the exception by bringing the example in. To achieve this, I present two cases from Bangladesh and Finland that demonstrate how one sovereign’s exception might be depicted as an example by another, and how both the exception and the example can coexist within the same system. Finally, I highlight the importance of reading the sovereign through the figures of both a homo sacer and a homo exemplar because the sovereign’s power is manifested not only via the production of a state of exception but also equally through the creation of a state of example.