Author(s): Nisha Kapoor

Politics

The extradition of terror subjects reveals who is considered to be human--and who is not

When Minh Pham was extradited from Britain to the US to face terrorism related charges, his appeal against the deprivation of his British citizenship was still pending. Soon after he arrived, his appeal was lost and he was effectively made stateless. Pham's story is one of the many in Deport, Deprive, Extradite that illustrates the perpetual enhancement of state power and its capabilities to expel.

In looking at these stories of Muslim men accused of terrorism-related offenses, Nisha Kapoor exposes how these racialized subjects are dehumanized, made non-human, both in terms of how they are represented and via the disciplinary techniques used to expel them. She explores how the establishment of these non-humans enables the expansion of inhumanity more broadly, targeting Muslims, people of colour, immigrants and refugees. In asking what such cases illuminate and legitimate about precariousness and dispossession, she offers a radical analysis of the contemporary security state.