Drawing from theories of affect economies as well as discussion of biopolitical distributions of life and death, this essay explores the public mediation of gendered security and national security in terms of a political branding that circulates notions of safety, fear, and threat. The analysis works through three different media productions that intersect with contemporary concerns of governance and economy: an advertising spread for clothing, a magazine article about cyber labor in China, and billboard advertisements for storage services. Assessing these cases necessitates revisiting the relationship between subject identity and populations to which Michel Foucault pointed when conceptualizing biopolitics. We argue that in media productions of gender, race, and security, gender, rather than functioning to mark an identity, is disaggregated in the service of what we call a population racism. This population racism organizes and distributes populations as vulnerable to, or protected from, processes of securitization in governance and economy.
Skip Nav Destination
Article navigation
Research Article|
December 01 2010
Gendered Security/National Security: Political Branding and Population Racism
Social Text (2010) 28 (4 (105)): 45–63.
Citation
Patricia Ticineto Clough, Craig Willse; Gendered Security/National Security: Political Branding and Population Racism. Social Text 1 December 2010; 28 (4 (105)): 45–63. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/01642472-2010-010
Download citation file:
Advertisement