The martyred body’s meaning comes from a transcendental nomos, not matter.

Evidence

In its desire for eternity, the besieged body passes through two stages. First, it is transformed into a mere thing, malleable matter. Second, the manner in which it is put to death—suicide—affords it its ultimate signification. The matter of the body, or again the matter which is the body, is invested with properties that cannot be deduced from its character as a thing, but from a transcendental nomos outside it. The besieged body becomes a piece of metal whose function is, through sacrifice, to bring eternal life into being. The body duplicates itself and, in death, literally and metaphorically escapes the state of siege and occupation. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 161

Categorization

• DEFINE: Lays out the two-stage mechanism by which a besieged body becomes meaningful: reified into matter, then signified through the manner of its death.
• DEEPTHINKING: ‘The body duplicates itself and escapes the state of siege’ is a dense, non-paraphraseable account of how sacrifice converts bodily destruction into survival.
• XREF: The body as ‘uniform’ and escaping occupation through death connects to necropolitics and to the constructed ‘Other’ strand. — connects to: Martyrdom derives the body’s value from abstraction toward eternity. — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 160

Related

• Martyrdom derives the body’s value from abstraction toward eternity. (similarity 0.87)

Broader Connections

• Martyrdom derives the body’s value from abstraction toward eternity. #corroborates (0.90) — Achille Mbembe, Necropolitics, 160