The 9/11 generation
Subtitle: youth, rights, and solidarity in the war on terror
By: Sunaina Marr Maira
Publisher: NYU Press; New York University Press
Published: 2016
Language: eng
Number of pages: 317
ISBN-13: 9781479817696; 9781479880515
Subjects: War on Terrorism, 2001-2009; September 11 Terrorist Attacks, 2001; Social aspects; Civil rights; Islamophobia; Youth; Muslims; Political activity; Social conditions; Minority youth
Other titles: Nine eleven generation
Description: Since the attacks of 9/11, the banner of national security has led to intense monitoring of the politics of Muslim and Arab Americans. Young people from these communities have come of age in a time when the question of political engagement is both urgent and fraught. In The 9/11 Generation, Sunaina Marr Maira uses extensive ethnography to understand the meaning of political subjecthood and mobilization for Arab, South Asian, and Afghan American youth. Maira explores how young people from communities targeted in the War on Terror engage with the "political," forging coalitions based on new racial and ethnic categories, even while under constant scrutiny and surveillance, and organizing around notions of civil rights and human rights. The 9/11 Generation explores the possibilities and pitfalls of rights-based organizing at a moment when the vocabulary of rights and democracy has been used to justify imperial interventions, such as the U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Maira further reconsiders political solidarity in cross-racial and interfaith alliances at a time when U.S. nationalism is understood as not just multicultural but also post-racial. Throughout, she weaves stories of post-9/11 youth activism through key debates about neoliberal democracy, the "radicalization" of Muslim youth, gender, and humanitarianism.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-294) and index.
Table of contents: title: The 9/11 generation in Silicon Valley; title: The new civil rights movement: cross-racial alliances and interfaith activism; title: Human rights, uncivil activism, and Palestinianization; title: More delicate than a flower, yet harder than a rock: human rights and humanitarianism in Af-Pak; title: Coming of age under surveillance: surveillance effects and the post-9/11 culture wars; title: Democracy and its others.