Brown Threat

Brown Threat makes a critical intervention in U.S based race studies. The book positions a category of ‘brown’ identification (along side identity) as a form of organizing race and racialized hierarchies in contemporary culture, especially in the wake of September 11. Here, brown is seen as both a product of historical xenophobia and slavery in the United States, and as a newer form of ongoing racism tied to notions of security and securitization. In order to illustrate this process, each chapter maps various junctures where the ideological, political and mediated terrain intersect, resulting in both an appetite for all things ‘brown’ by U.S. consumers, while at the same time various political and nationalist discourses and legal structures conspire to control brown bodies (immigration, emigration, migration, outsourcing, incarceration) both within and outside the United States. The book explores this contradictory relationship between representation and reality, arguing that the representation acts as a way to mediate and manage the anxieties that come from contemporary global realties, where brown spaces, like India, Pakistan, and the amalgamated Middle East, pose significant economic, security, and political challenges to the United States.