Surviving the dragnet: ‘special interest’ detainees in the US after 9/11

Abstract

Following the 9/11 attacks in the US, thousands of Muslim, South Asian and Middle Eastern men were detained by the FBI, police and immigration officers and held in various prisons in New York and New Jersey. The effect of these detentions on individuals, their families and the wider community is here documented. The purpose of this incarceration, which often endured for months without charges being brought, was not to ensure greater security, but to carry out surveillance on and intimidate what had been designated, via an official and popular discourse of anti-Muslim racism, a ‘suspect community’. While postmodern anthropology may consider human rights part of an ‘outmoded’ discourse, the experience of these detainees proves its continued relevance.